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March 19, 2005
San Francisco Ballet
Preliminary observations after a 22 hour day: The company looked provincial in the best possible way; they looked like they served their city and community and there was nothing they needed to prove. Gonzalo Garcia's Wild Boy persona won't work for every role, but he's an interesting enough artist to accept it for a while longer. SFB does a great job with Grosse Fuge, a piece I find interestingly cool for all the hot chests and sexy moves. Also interesting that you can instantly tell the four men apart, but four women dancing in unison with their hair up. . .well, in this ballet Balanchine was wrong. They're anybody.
Possokhov shows real promise and ambition with "Reflections" and hallelujah, he's a ballet choreographer, not a kickbutt choreographer. There's a lot of energy and experiment in what he's doing and he doesn't edit out some of the bad ideas (and there are more than a few). I want to see more.
My roommate from when I danced at American Festival Ballet in Boise (I am not kidding. Really.) Christopher, invited me to dinner. The meal was marvelous and his home off Church and Market was stunning. I hate him.
On another more depressing subject, I've been to Pennsylvania, Boston and San Francisco in the past three weeks. Each one of them has a better ballet orchestra than NYCB. What the heck is up with that?
Amazingly, I got my Taylor piece written. It will be in Danceview Times on Monday.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at March 19, 2005 6:07 PM
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Comments
Oh Leigh, you've got to hear the orchestra that performs with PA Ballet again, they're awful. Really. During the Balanchine program in November, it was embarrassing how bad it was and I actually thought the company would have been better off with recorded music (it was that bad!). It didn't improve too much during the Nutcracker. The Ashton program was the best of the lot. We'll see how the woodwinds hold up during Raymonda Variations next month.
Posted by: Dale at March 20, 2005 6:32 PM
Maybe it's because the Lanchberry/Herold is the most straightforward?
I bet Stravinsky is a treat.
Still, NYCB's orchestra started to improve, and now it seems to be slipping again.
Posted by: Leigh Witchel at March 22, 2005 6:46 PM