San Francisco Ballet season, Sadler's Wells, 2019

[alison]

I was at the matinee too, and after a not-too-good experience with the previous bill I was glad not to have missed this one.  I thought much of Hummingbird was excellent, the Peck was good, and the Welch was nice enough, I suppose (can anyone tell me who the woman in mint was?).  I did notice that the cast was lacking a number of the "starrier" names that I'd seen on previous visits, and wondered whether they'd put a second (or third) cast on for the matinee.

[Lynette H]

There were lots of terrific things about SFB's visit, but one thing struck me which I don't think I've seen remarked on anywhere. The lighting. In all these new works, you could actually see the dancers. The gloom which is so prevalent in new productions in London was just not in evidence.  It was great to see what was on stage properly. If only it could happen more often....

[zxDaveM]

Gosh - I SO agree with that comment about the lighting Lynette!!

 

Overall it was an utterly fabulous season (12 new works varying from brilliant to merely very good), and had my wallet been able to withstand the assault - and had I been in possession of a time-turner - I would have gone to every performance! I was saddened that some of the shows weren't that well attended, so I hope that doesn't put them off coming again soon

[Bruce Wall]

I very much enjoyed the performances (seven in total I think) I saw of the SFB while they were here.  I agree about the lighting - and there is no question but that the level of the dancing was fine;  VERY fine indeed. 

 

While certainly I missed Chung, Van Patten and Scheller (who I have long admired be it with NYCB or SFB), the ladies here in the London SFB company had many standouts.  I adored Froustey in Snowblind.  Those rich eyes have a morse code of their own.  A pensive alphabet kept flashing bright in their yearning.  Yan Yan Tan left me in wonder at the stealth of her elongated limbs as much as of her much appreciated longevity in no matter what work she appeared.  Totally adored Dores Andres - especially when she was matched with the superlative Joseph Walsh - be it in Ratmansky's Symphony No. 9, in Scarlett's Hummingbird or - and most crucially - in Peck's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming.  I saw the latter work a second time with a new cast during the Saturday afternoon matinee and it was just not the same experience.  Far from it.  The first cast held the focus so ably forged by by the initial community of the noted whole.  The second definitely didn't.  It almost struck me as a different work - knowing that, of course, at root it wasn't.  The Scarlett was more but not as assured at that matinee as it had been with its first cast.  Still it made me wonder if the Peck too might have been different/more focused had the choreographer himself been somewhere in the vicinity - much as Scarlett was.  (I know this to be true in the latter's case as I saw him come out of a pass door just before the start of the Hummingbird matinee.)  Sasha De Sola is a true spirit of joy and glistened in whatever role she was given which happily was much.  Young Wona Park defines potential.  I also very much enjoyed Jennifer Stahl (so affectionately ridden in the Marston) and Isabella DeVivo, a force of blissful nature. 

 

This Company too is one rich - as is our own Royal Ballet just now - in male adjuncts.  (I so admired how male on male partnering at SFB became - or most assuredly has become - a matter of simple Outbound course.)  Each of the SFB men were a part of a considerable and certainly notable whole.  The aforementioned Joseph Walsh, the ever electrifying Ulrik Birkkjaer and our own (as already noted earlier on) hair-raising Aaron Robison each dazzled in Ratmansky's Chamber Symphony as the very spirit of Shostakovitch.  Surely this has to be one of the finest dramatic works created for a senior male dancer in the first quarter of this century.  Each man here mentioned honoured it exceptionally.  Luke Ingham and Vitor Luiz (who has guested with ENB) both showed themselves masters of the art of partnering.  For me there were three outstanding dancers in the younger contingent:  the truly remarkable Angelo Greco who managed to hypnotise but never blur in everything he took on;  Lonnie Weeks, who is a genius of soulful bounty.  His closing solo in Wheeldon's gloriously telling Bound To was so affectionately searing in its compassion so as to render this treatise unforgettable.  The audience sat - as a whole - agog at its wallop.  Benjamin Freemantle - a new SFB principal not unlike our own tower of ecstacy, Marcelino Sambe - has the capacity to make simple in the viewer's eye a string of steps which are far from being so.  Theirs is a test of true brilliance.  

 

This was a wonderful gift.  Thank you Helgi Tommason (as astute an SFB Artistic Director as he was a NYCB dancer)  - and thank you Alistair Spaulding for making this prize possible.  It literally broke my heart that the audience for your rich gifts was so undeservedly underpopulated throughout.  Perhaps the time for such has passed in London.  Educational failures may well have come home to roost.  I don't want to actually believe that is true BUT if it IS so it saddens me even more.  I want to see that balletic lexicon extended as each of these works - with the exception for me of the Pita - strove to do.  That said, I felt - throughout - entirely privileged to have been proffered the luxury to attend this feast of balletic colloquy.  The rapturous fruition of its elated intercourse will not only stay in but shall inform my soul for many years to come.  That much I know. I certainly will do what I can to pass such memories on. 

 

  

Edited June 10, 2019 by Bruce Wall

[bridiem]

Bringing 4 programmes was ambitious; and unfortunately the season has happened at a really busy ballet time in London. I only got to one programme because there has been so much else on. If they'd come a few weeks later, I wonder if audiences would have been bigger.

[MRR]

Beautiful review Bruce.  SFB is an excellent company whom I hope to see in their home theater someday.  I completely agree on Chamber Symphony: a magnificent work and vehicle for a leading male dancer.  Robison has never danced better and I'm envious you saw Walsh and Birkkjaer perform it too.  

 

 

[Lynette H]

One thing that did strike me as odd. Usually at Sadler's there are quite a few dance school groups in attendance during the week, occupying the upper reaches of the second circle,  chattering like flocks of starlings. I didn't see any groups this time  on any visit. Perhaps that made the place feel emptier ? (The stalls always seemed quite full).  But why wouldn't these programmes attract schools ?  

[Lynette H]

SFB came in 2008 and brought us three programmes of new work then. I stumbled on this thread from the old ballet.co forum about it

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20081121101547/http://www.ballet.co.uk/dcforum/happening/6805.html

 

I was interested to see that they brought Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour on that trip, very soon after it was made. At the time it didn't make such an impression. It seems to have grown in stature since then. 

 

I wondered which pieces from this years offerings might have such a successful future life. 

[Sharon]

Did anyone write of David Dawson's ballet? I may be wrong but I don't remember anyone mentioning it.....?

[alison]

A brief summary, a week on, of my reaction to the pieces:

 

Ones I definitely want to see again, several times over: the Shostakovich Trilogy

 

Ones I would certainly like to see again: Hummingbird - Scarlett

 

Ones I would be interested in seeing again: Snowblind - Marston.

 

I think the rest probably fall within some sort of "not bothered if I never see again" category, or something like that.

[zxDaveM]

3 hours ago, Sharon said:

Did anyone write of David Dawson's ballet? I may be wrong but I don't remember anyone mentioning it.....?

 

It was a ballet not untypical of his style - some of it breathtakingly beautiful, some of it a bit crotch spreading, the latter slightly spoiling it for me, from what otherwise would have been a really striking piece. I generally like his work, and liked this one, but do wish he could reign in some of the extremes.

[Sharon]

Thank you for responding Dave 👍

[Coated]

Long rambly post ahead, quick summary of fab SFB season at Sadlers Wells:

 

Out of 12 ballets I loved 4 (Ratmansky and Scarlett ) and rather enjoyed the rest with the exception of the Liang and Welch pieces - and even those were still better than a lot of new pieces I've seen in recent memory.

 

The company looked great to me, and I hope they will come back to London. 

 

Impressionist ramblings on the last 2 programmes: 

 

Programme C

Welch

Bach and ballet rarely work out for me, and this wasn't an exception. There were quite a few astonishing turns and spins, and the piece felt the most classical of the lot. At the same time, the technical feats were buried in the rest of the choreography - this could be a device of making something difficult appear as a throwaway move, but to me it came across as an uneven presentation. I couldn't figure out what the ballet was trying to be, and how it connects to the music.

Scarlett

I loved and adored Hummingbird. I want to marry it. I want the RB to add it to their repertoire. I even liked the Glass score. On first viewing I thought the piece was about relationships and loss, the last pdd of the couple in white was soul searing and magnificent, and it felt like the natural end of the performance, so the continuation of dancing sudden change in mood to something more jazzy and jaunty was unexpected and a bit jarring. Watching it again, I felt it actually worked, with loss or tragedy just being part of life, and life going on.

Peck

Fun fast bits, interesting but a bit gimmicky. I was heavily reminded of Fame and similar 80's dance movies, girls in shiny leggings flicking their hair...
 My friend heavily objected to the sneakers, I thought they were an interesting touch but turned it into a curiosity piece.

Programme D

Wheeldon is rarely my favourite in a triple bill, so I was quite pleased that I reasonably likes Bound. The use of mobiles was quite well done, though abandoned after a bit - if the rest of the dancing was thematically linked to the absorption with your own little  world, that wasn't entirely obvious to me. The pdd with man with mobile and device-less woman was fairly genius though. She practically had to climb on him to arrange her own lifts, with him entirely absorbed in his own universe. It was also great to see a bit of great to see 2 sets of same gender groupings including pdds that worked rather well. I'd probably would have preferred the piece to be a little shorter overall, but wouldn't cry if showed up in a triple bill. Wheeldon didn't stuff the piece with what I call his signature ugly moves, which made the whole thing flow more beautfully. The only thing that jarred for me was the silhouette of a person sitting back on a chair to lyrics that quite clearly concerned with sitting on the edge of one's seat. Perhaps I'm being too literal.

MacIntyre

There was a lot of fun in the choreography and and the dancing fizzed - until the seemingly endless duet with a short-legged stool started. Still beautifully danced, but my interested waned. One of the nights I took a friend along who'd never been to the ballet before, and she liked the MacIntyre best, stool dancing non withstanding.

Dawson

I enjoyed this in the moment, the overall flowing movement and especially the parts danced by Sofianne Sylvy and Vera Wong, I liked the music and atmosphere - but can't recall much of the piece a week after seeing it twice.

[alison]

1 hour ago, Coated said:

Scarlett

I loved and adored Hummingbird. I want to marry it. I want the RB to add it to their repertoire. I even liked the Glass score. On first viewing I thought the piece was about relationships and loss, the last pdd of the couple in white was soul searing and magnificent, and it felt like the natural end of the performance, so the continuation of dancing sudden change in mood to something more jazzy and jaunty was unexpected and a bit jarring. Watching it again, I felt it actually worked, with loss or tragedy just being part of life, and life going on.
 

 

Yes, you see, I loved the first two movements, but I guess having been able to see it only the once (I was minorly tempted to dump the Fonteyn Celebration and come back for another viewing in the evening) I was still on the "unexpected and a bit jarring" bit.  Perhaps if I'd seen it another time I'd have changed my mind.