This Time
Last
Year | Tonight I went to the Smuin
Ballet with Elle, who surprised me with the invitation in the middle of
the afternoon. My plans *had* been to go to sleep at 8:30 (which I think
I may do tonight, which is so pathetic on a Friday but my first chance
this week). We took BART in, walking a ways out of our way, but ending
up with yummy romaine, watercress, gorgonzola and walnut salads. We
managed to arrive at the Yerba Buena Arts center just at 8, and were in
our seats before the lights went down. Director Michael Smuin is
well-known for his quirky/flashy approach to ballet. Even the first
piece, "Chants D'Auvergne", which was the most conservative of the
night's offerings, found room for whimsy. The director's notes promise
"There's no story in this ballet, just the daily life of the young people
in a French village and the fresh air and charm of their idealized
pastoral landscape." I had not read these notes ahead of time, and I'm
glad I wasn't narrowed by this vision. The dancers all wore flowy
costumes in varying muted-earthtones-pastels, and I found myself
connecting up the girl in the soft mustard gown with the boy in the
corresponding color. Sometimes the "right" colors danced together,
sometimes they mixed (and you knew, oooh, *that* relationship isn't gonna
work) and sometimes three different shades of blue (a boy and two girls)
danced jealously all together. At one point, when three different boys
danced a piece full of youthfully virility, all three stretched out on the
stage and humped the stage floor. Very gracefully. Later they spun
lazily through the air in gigantic barrel roll turns that seemed to pause
at the top, their unison perfect. There was only one girl who didn't
match anyone else, an absolutely lovely young blond dancer (Allison Jay)
in a flame colored gown who spun on the stage with such passion that I
knew the meaning of the phrase, "my heart lept up". I found myself
rooting for her - her alone, not her and one of these
muted-earthtone-pastel boys. She actually looked like Flaming June here
had woken up and decided to dance as pretty as she looks: 
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| The second piece, "The Eternal
Idol", is a tribute to Rodin. It begins with two figures, a man and a
woman in nude bodysuits, posed on a large rock. What follows was the most
sensual, erotic and moving dancing I've ever seen. Amy London and Joral
Schmalle did not merely achieve sexual tension, but an intense connection
between two people. Kurt Vonneget would call it a "koras made for two"
(Cat's Cradle). It was so moving that I managed to have tears streaming
down my face constantly about a quarter o'the way thorugh. Oh, no, it
wasn't really a sad piece at all, unless you've just recently *had* that
connection but lost it. I was holding my breath as he set her carefully
on the rock at the end, watching to see if he *really* meant it when he
leaned into her, or if he just felt like that's what he had to do.* She
actually made a small bobble and kicked him in the head, though they
covered very well. Heh. I imagined Flaming June dancing and felt
better. | *Bitter, ain't I? |
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| "My First Time" was interesting,
beginning with three women sitting around drinking wine and playing cards.
There's dialogue throughout, which the dancers lip-sync to very well, and
each woman gets up and dances the story of her first time. The main
problem I had with this piece was that the guy who played all of their
teenage lovers had a pot belly. Each of them describe their boyfriend
with something like "he looked good in a t-shirt" or "he had a nice, tight
butt", but this poor guy looked balding and middle-aged. He's supposed to
be their memory, right? Not the way the guy looks now. Oh, well. It was
a neat concept, and pulled off well. | |
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| The final piece, "Frankie and
Johnny", was the weakest of the show in many respects. I found the latin
tango/mambo/cha cha cha music rather tinny, loud and grating, to be frank.
And there were some *really* bad cuts in the music, where the director
spliced in a dramatic change in mood. One of the challenges of
choreography is fitting the story to the music, and it seems to me if
you're going to cheat you could at least do it well. Not that the
choreography was bad - there were some extremely powerful rape/forced
seduction sequences. Dalyn Chew* played a very seductive "Cat", and Celia
Fushille-Burke was completely believable as Frankie. Rodolphe Cassand was
a bit wobbly as Johnny, but we found out later from the lighting designer,
Sara Linnie Slocum (a friend of Elle's), that this piece was choreographed
for a "much stronger man". It seems that part of Smuin's genius is the
way he uses a dancer's skills and crafts their parts just for them. Very
impressive, until you have to switch roles, I guess. Still, the end of
the show gave everyone a chance to leap into the air and spin around
dizzingly, giving the sense that each person was showing off their best
trick. The glitter and fanfare and the nauseating film clip (a spinning
newspaper stops to reveal the headline, "Frankie's Aquitted!". Ugh.) at
the end left the sour and not the sweet lingering after this
piece. | *Elle told me she dances in the 1997 release of
Return of the Jedi. She's the creature with two floppy horns coming off
of her head, in the Jabba the Hut scene. Michael Smuin directed that, by
the way, and Celia Fushille-Burke was also a featured
dancer. |
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| Still, it was a lovely evening.
I miss dance, dancing, the world of dance, seeing dance, dancing often,
moving, flowing, shaping and worshipping. We got to go backstage after
the show, and while Ellie's lights were fascinating machinery, my favorite
moment is when I gathered the nerve to move downstage and face out over
the empty house. I raised my hands and risked a quick flourish before
ducking my head, taking another deep breath to gaze at the audience, and
exiting stage right. | |
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