Tamara Rojo at San Francisco Ballet

[Jeannette]

1 hour ago, miliosr said:

San Francisco Ballet has announced its season for 2023:

2023 SEASON - San Francisco Ballet (sfballet.org)

 

next@90 Festival

'A' - Jan 20-Feb 11, 'B' - Jan 21-Feb 8, 'C' - Jan 25-Feb 7

NEXT@90 - San Francisco Ballet (sfballet.org)

 

Giselle (Helgi Tomasson)

Feb 24-Mar 5

 

Program 5 (Helgi Tomasson/Myles Thatcher/William Forsythe)

Mar 14-19

 

Cinderella (Christopher Wheeldon)

Mar 31-Apr 8

 

Romeo & Juliet (Helgi Tomasson)

Apr 21-30

 

Tomasson programmed this season and, as I understand it, will oversee the next@90 Festival. So, we won't have any ideas about Tamara Rojo's plans for quite a while.

 

No Ratmansky, Balanchine, Robbins…no full-length (or any length) Petipa/classical tutu ballet…no ballet from the Ballet Russes heritage (Diaghilev era or ‘30s/‘40s B.R.).  I almost wrote “a big shunning of Russia” but I see two full-length Prokofiev scores. Big meh, sorry.

 

[miliosr]

4 hours ago, Jeannette said:

No Ratmansky, Balanchine, Robbins…no full-length (or any length) Petipa/classical tutu ballet…no ballet from the Ballet Russes heritage (Diaghilev era or ‘30s/‘40s B.R.).  I almost wrote “a big shunning of Russia” but I see two full-length Prokofiev scores. Big meh, sorry.

 

Regarding Balanchine, Ratmansky and Robbins, Helgi Tomasson may be predicting the future for the San Francisco Ballet under Tamaro Rojo. I don't think of her as a firm adherent to any of those individuals' works. So, we may see a situation where the San Francisco Ballet in the 21st century evolves out of the New York City Ballet's orbit. We'll see in a year.

 

I don't know what to make of the next@90 Festival. Will it actually sell based on the names involved?

[Geoff]

5 hours ago, miliosr said:

we may see a situation where the San Francisco Ballet in the 21st century evolves out of the New York City Ballet's orbit. 

What an interesting comment. Might you expand a little on this point?

[miliosr]

5 hours ago, Geoff said:

What an interesting comment. Might you expand a little on this point?

In the United States, San Francisco Ballet (SFB) has always had a tight connection to George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet (NYCB).

 

Lew Christensen, who was part of Balanchine's precursor companies to the NYCB and was a member of the company during its earliest days, was artistic director and and then co-artistic director (with Michael Smuin) of the SFB from the early-1950s to his death in 1984. (There was a huge schism between Christensen and Smuin in the period before Christensen's death which ushered in Helgi Tomasson as artistic director). Christensen always maintained the Balanchine works as a central part of the SFB's repertory.

 

When Tomasson took over in 1985, he too emphasized the Balanchine repertory and brought in central works from the Jerome Robbins repertory. This was a natural development as Tomasson spent 15 years (from 1970-85) as a principal at the NYCB after Rebekah Harkness disbanded the first version of Tomasson's prior company, the Harkness Ballet. Basically, Tomasson came in and threw out all of the works that Christensen and Smuin had built up over the years, and instead rebuilt the repertory around the Balanchine and Robbins works. A central element in this refashioning of the repertory has been programming the works of other choreographers who emerged aesthetically from the NYCB(Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck) or had an important connection to it (Alexei Ratmansky). So, in effect, the SFB has spent the last 60 years of its existence informed by developments at the NYCB. (I should note that Tomasson was also the American artistic director who programmed the works of William Forsythe and Mark Morris in a big way.)

 

What is the point of all this history? Merely to say that Tamara Rojo represents a break in the SFB's history as she has no strong connection at all to the NYCB and its aesthetic. Rojo made her name in a different type of repertory and her own programming decisions at the English National Ballet suggest her interests may lie elsewhere. Where her interests and Tomasson's converge is with the Forsythe repertory. If you're a William Forsythe fan at the SFB, my guess would be that you can sleep soundly regarding him maintaining his place at the SFB. As for everything else, we'll have to see how much of a refashioning Rojo is prepared to engage in and how much leeway the board has given her to do so.

[miliosr]

One small piece of news out of San Francisco: Katherine Barkman has left the Washington Ballet, where she was a principal, to join the San Francisco Ballet as a soloist.

[postie]

Somewhat tangential, Tomara gave a moving acceptance speech at the Sky Arts Awards this year (the outstanding achievement prize), which was broadcast last night.

 

She spoke of her years in England and particularly at the ENB. She felt there was a unique and precious cultural eco-system here and that she wouldn't have developed without that. It reminded me of a radio broadcast when she described seeing Francis Bacon's response to Velázquez's Pope Innocent for the first time, and how that changed everything for her.

 

It might pop up again on Sky Arts. The Dante Project won its category and McGregor accepted/spoke as did Opera North's Rigoletto which was also quite moving.

 

End of digression

Edited July 14, 2022 by postie
too many 'agains'.

[miliosr]

Changes to the NEXT@90 festival roster:

San Francisco Ballet Announces Updated NEXT@90 Festival Roster (broadwayworld.com)

 

Benjamin Millepied has withdrawn and Val Caniparoli has replaced him. The revamped choreographer roster will be: Nicolas Blanc, Bridget Breiner, Val Caniparoli, Robert Garland, Yuka Oishi, Yuri Possokhov, Jamar Roberts, Danielle Rowe, and Claudia Schreier.

 

Still not sure how well this festival will sell.

[Emeralds]

On 18/05/2022 at 01:27, miliosr said:

Regarding Balanchine, Ratmansky and Robbins, Helgi Tomasson may be predicting the future for the San Francisco Ballet under Tamaro Rojo. I don't think of her as a firm adherent to any of those individuals' works. So, we may see a situation where the San Francisco Ballet in the 21st century evolves out of the New York City Ballet's orbit. We'll see in a year.

 

I don't know what to make of the next@90 Festival. Will it actually sell based on the names involved?

Hasn’t SFB already evolved out of NYCB’s orbit from around 2001? I think the very last Balanchine ballet I saw them perform was Divertimento no 15 and they seem to dance fewer NYCB works (not counting Justin Peck) than other companies eg Royal Ballet. Their most prominent works are now a mix of Tomasson’s productions of the classics, and new choreography by Possokhov, Wheeldon, Page, Scarlett, Tomasson, Ratmansky, Pita, Peck, etc etc. Odd observation I know, but I seem to find that some of Ashley Page and Liam Scarlett’s works are a better fit on SFB than Royal Ballet. What I’m curious about is how many of the above choreographers’ works Tamara  will keep and whose she won’t. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Emeralds

[news2me]

41 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Hasn’t SFB already evolved out of NYCB’s orbit from around 2001? I think the very last Balanchine ballet I saw them perform was Divertimento no 15 and they seem to dance fewer NYCB works (not counting Justin Peck) than other companies eg Royal Ballet. Their most prominent works are now a mix of Tomasson’s productions of the classics, and new choreography by Possokhov, Wheeldon, Page, Scarlett, Tomasson, Ratmansky, Pita, Peck, etc etc. Odd observation I know, but I seem to find that some of Ashley Page and Liam Scarlett’s works are a better fit on SFB than Royal Ballet. What I’m curious about is how many of the above choreographers’ works Tamara  will keep and whose she won’t. 

I am afraid I don't understand what it means SFB being in the orbit of NYCB and what happened in 2001.  But until 2022, the final season for its AD Helgi Tomasson that understandably was programed to highlight his legacy, SFB regularly performed works by both Balanchine and Robbins. During the two years of the lockdown SFB recorded and streamed A Midsummer Night's Dream and Emeralds (a complete performance of Jewels was streamed that used earlier recordings of Rubies and Diamonds). 

[miliosr]

10 hours ago, Emeralds said:

Hasn’t SFB already evolved out of NYCB’s orbit from around 2001? I think the very last Balanchine ballet I saw them perform was Divertimento no 15 

I don't know that I would agree with that.

 

Just checking my records dating back to Helgi Tomasson's 30th anniversary season in 2015 and ending with the COVID-shortened season in 2020, San Francisco Ballet (SFB) performed (by my count) 10 George Balanchine works. (The complete Jewels would have made for 11 in spring 2020 but I believe was cancelled due to COVID). The Jerome Robbins works account for another 5 works during that same period. I would argue that the "cousinage" between the repertories of the SFB and the New York City Ballet has remained tight right up to the present.

 

10 hours ago, Emeralds said:

What I’m curious about is how many of the above choreographers’ works Tamara  will keep and whose she won’t. 

The announced 2023 season raised a few eyebrows in the United States because it did not include repertory stalwarts such as Balanchine, Robbins and Alexei Ratmansky. Is this a harbinger of a different direction under Tamara Rojo? As I noted upthread, she comes out of a completely different tradition than her predecessors Lew Christensen and Tomasson did. But we won't know what she intends to keep until the 2024 season is announced.

Edited August 25, 2022 by miliosr

[miliosr]

Longish interview with Tamara Rojo:

S.F. Ballet’s new director seeks a balance — innovation with stability | Datebook (sfchronicle.com)

 

This quote leapt out at me:

At the same time, Rojo is busy making calls to line up the company’s 2024 season, the first that she’ll program.

 

“Of course, I want to bring my own view, and some of that will be European,” she says, noting she also sees an opportunity to look east, to talents in countries such as Taiwan. [Bolded: My emphasis] “But also, I want to understand San Francisco Ballet at its core, and this company is an American company.”

 

Moderators: Please add story to Dance Links if possible.

Edited January 13, 2023 by miliosr

[Jan McNulty]

6 minutes ago, miliosr said:

Longish issue with Tamara Rojo:

S.F. Ballet’s new director seeks a balance — innovation with stability | Datebook (sfchronicle.com)

 

This quote leapt out at me:

At the same time, Rojo is busy making calls to line up the company’s 2024 season, the first that she’ll program.

 

“Of course, I want to bring my own view, and some of that will be European,” she says, noting she also sees an opportunity to look east, to talents in countries such as Taiwan. [Bolded: My emphasis] “But also, I want to understand San Francisco Ballet at its core, and this company is an American company.”

 

Thanks for the quote Miliosr.  Sadly the SF Chronicle is still geo-blocked because of GDPR.

 

I'll be interested to see the direction she takes the company in.

[Candleque]

Fwiw, I got the article to show by plugging its url into printfriendly.com (a tip I think I learned from someone here a while back)

 

[miliosr]

10 hours ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

I'll be interested to see the direction she takes the company in.

Based on her own career trajectory, I don't think Tamara Rojo has any great loyalty to the George Balanchine/Jerome Robbins/Christopher Wheeldon/Alexei Ratmansky/Justin Peck cohort that so dominates the American ballet world. Where her interests do intersect with those of Helgi Tomasson would be with the William Forsythe repertory and the great 19th century classics. (Whether she keeps Tomasson's versions of the great classics remains to be seen.)

 

What's unknowable in all this is what Rojo's remit from the San Francisco Ballet Board was when she was hired. Did they hire Rojo to shake up a repertory that, perhaps, had grown predictable after 37 years of the Tomasson reign? It would be a welcome jolt if she brought in Pina Bausch's version of The Rite of Spring as she did at English National Ballet!

 

In the other news of the day, San Francisco Ballet announced on its Instagram feed that Tiit Helimets will give his last performance as a principal dancer during the upcoming next@90 festival. He will remain as a principal character artist. Helimets joined the company in 2005 as a principal but he actually began his career in 1996 with the Estonian National Ballet. So, that's a great run - close to 27 years!

 

Helimets moving from principal to principal character presents an opportunity to Rojo. Does she promote someone from within to fill that spot or does she go out into the free market and hire someone?

[Scheherezade]

7 hours ago, Candleque said:

Fwiw, I got the article to show by plugging its url into printfriendly.com (a tip I think I learned from someone here a while back)

 

Thanks for this, Candleque, it’s really good to know. 

[Jan McNulty]

5 hours ago, miliosr said:

 

In the other news of the day, San Francisco Ballet announced on its Instagram feed that Tiit Helimets will give his last performance as a principal dancer during the upcoming next@90 festival. He will remain as a principal character artist. Helimets joined the company in 2005 as a principal but he actually began his career in 1996 with the Estonian National Ballet. So, that's a great run - close to 27 years!

 

Helimets moving from principal to principal character presents an opportunity to Rojo. Does she promote someone from within to fill that spot or does she go out into the free market and hire someone?

Thanks for the news about Tiit.  He became a huge audience favourite during his time with Birmingham Royal Ballet.

[Jan McNulty]

There's an interview with Tamara Rojo as she takes up the reins at SFB in Today's Links:

 

 

[alison]

On 13/01/2023 at 23:43, miliosr said:

Helimets moving from principal to principal character presents an opportunity to Rojo. Does she promote someone from within to fill that spot or does she go out into the free market and hire someone?

 

Does she have/need to?  I don't know how things work at SFB.   Does someone automatically get moved into a "job vacancy"?

[miliosr]

1 hour ago, alison said:

 

Does she have/need to?  I don't know how things work at SFB.   Does someone automatically get moved into a "job vacancy"?

I wouldn't say that there are hard targets in terms of the number of male and female principals.

 

What I would note is that there has been a certain erosion in the male principals ranks since last spring (when the news broke about Rojo's hiring). Ulrik Birkkjaer and Benjamin Freemantle chose to depart, and Julian Mackay's contract was not renewed - not by choice according to him. Tiit Helimets is now transitioning from the principal dancer ranks to the principal character actor ranks. However, Isaac Hernadez joined in that time. So, that leaves 8 principal men after February 2023 when there were 11 in spring 2023.

 

Rojo may bide her time in order to take the company's measure for the next four months. My guess would be that she would want 1-2 more principals as a cushion against the inevitable disruptions caused by injuries. There are some promising male soloists but whether they're ready to make the jump to principal status I cannot say. We also don't know who - if anyone - has put out feelers to Rojo to join the company after the winter-spring 2023 season ends. 

[miliosr]

My prior post should have read - "there were 11 in spring 2022."

[Sabine0308]

If this has been posted already, apologies. Here's an interview with Tamara Rojo, published by the Fjordreview magazine:

https://tinyurl.com/2p9epy26

 

[Jan McNulty]

31 minutes ago, Sabine0308 said:

If this has been posted already, apologies. Here's an interview with Tamara Rojo, published by the Fjordreview magazine:

https://tinyurl.com/2p9epy26

 

It was in the Links yesterday.

[miliosr]

I read the interview with Tamara Rojo in Fjord Review.

 

The interview covers much the same ground as the Chronicle interview although I thought she was somewhat more forthcoming with Fjord. Two things were of note:

• She tackles head on the outsized influence George Balanchine played in the development of the classical dance in the United States by noting that, "there are a lot of choreographers that have been so deeply shaped by his legacy, that what we see is a lot of Balanchine-derivative work." Whether she thinks that's a good thing or a bad thing isn't entirely clear from the interview. (I lean toward the latter based on her use of the word "derivative" but who knows?)
• She also addresses the issue of what it means to be a California-based company in the 21st century. Should the San Francisco Ballet be looking east across the Pacific for new stimuli rather than always looking toward Europe and New York (the New York City Ballet, specifically) for ideas?

[miliosr]

Oregon Ballet Theatre has named choreographer Danielle Rowe as artistic director:

Dani Rowe - Oregon Ballet Theatre (obt.org)

 

What does this have to do with San Francisco Ballet (SFB)? Well, Rowe's husband is Luke Ingham, who is a principal dancer at SFB. Hard to know if he will head north with his wife or not. While he's in his late 30s, he may have a few good years left in him at San Francisco.

 

IF he should leave, that means SFB would have lost five principal men by the start of the 2024 winter-spring season, including Ulrik Birkkjaer (left in 2022), Benjamin Freemantle (left in 2022), Julian Mackay (contract not renewed) and Tiit Helimets (retired in February 2023). (Tamara Rojo's husband, Isaac Hernandez, joined, which, if Ingham were to leave, would leave SFB with a net deficit of four principal men.)

 

Meanwhile, in her review of SFB's Next@90 festival in the pages of Fjord Review, Rachel Howard begins her review with this vaguely anxious appraisal of the leadership changeover:

 

"San Francisco Ballet, the U.S.’s oldest professional ballet company and second largest, is entering its 90th season at a moment of profound transition. Helgi Tomasson, artistic director for 37 years, has just handed the reins to Tamara Rojo, who arrives triumphantly after a decade of success raising the profile of the English National Ballet. Aside from both prizing the work of William Forsythe, the two are markedly different in their repertory interests, but Rojo’s programming direction—will the company still dance Balanchine and Robbins?—won’t be known until she announces the 2024 season this April."

 

And it's not just George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins who may be facing a reduced future at the SFB. What of Tomasson favorites like Mark Morris? And what of Tomasson himself? He didn't hesitate to ditch the works of his predecessor, Lew Christensen, so there's precedent for Rojo to downplay, or discard outright, the Tomasson repertory. We'll know in April!

[Sophoife]

Luke Ingham and Dani Rowe have managed their separate careers admirably thus far: they left Australia for Houston together (she already an experienced principal), she went to NDT, he to SFB, she to choreograph, they had babies, she's travelled all over, he's guested elsewhere...Oregon directorship is a full time job but for Australians 1,000km is nothing 😂 and as a principal it's not like he's dancing every night.

 

[Lynette H]

13 hours ago, miliosr said:

 

 

Meanwhile, in her review of SFB's Next@90 festival in the pages of Fjord Review, Rachel Howard begins her review with this vaguely anxious appraisal of the leadership changeover:

 

"San Francisco Ballet, the U.S.’s oldest professional ballet company and second largest, is entering its 90th season at a moment of profound transition. Helgi Tomasson, artistic director for 37 years, has just handed the reins to Tamara Rojo, who arrives triumphantly after a decade of success raising the profile of the English National Ballet. Aside from both prizing the work of William Forsythe, the two are markedly different in their repertory interests,

 

Well, there might be another name to add to that.  Yuri Possokhov  has created works for SFB, and Rojo commissioned him to make a piece for ENB - Senseless Kindness.  It was made originally for their Digital season in lockdown, and later performed on stage at Sadler's as part of their Reunion bill. 

[FLOSS]

As far as SFB is concerned I am not sure that I would take Rojo's ten years at ENB as much of an indication of the direction in which she might wish to take her new company. ENB has its own traditions and corporate culture and because it spends a great deal of its time touring outside London it finds itself wedded to a limited repertory of ballets that sell tickets outside London. It uses its London seasons to recoup its losses and build up funds. In such circumstances  would hesitate to suggest that what she has been programming for ENB is any indicator of what she would want to programme for SFB. I would not describe her as a dancer whose tastes and style were greatly influenced by her time at the Royal Ballet and her exposure to its repertory created by its own in-house choreographers apart, perhaps, from her experience of performing the MacMillan dram ballets. She may well relish the idea of being able to programme a wider range of the Balanchine and Robbin's repertory than she encountered during her performing career.

 

 

[miliosr]

11 hours ago, Lynette H said:

 

Well, there might be another name to add to that.  Yuri Possokhov  has created works for SFB, and Rojo commissioned him to make a piece for ENB - Senseless Kindness.  It was made originally for their Digital season in lockdown, and later performed on stage at Sadler's as part of their Reunion bill. 

Possokhov has made quite a lot for San Francisco Ballet - dating all the way back to 1997.

 

11 hours ago, FLOSS said:

She may well relish the idea of being able to programme a wider range of the Balanchine and Robbin's repertory than she encountered during her performing career.

 

Maybe . . . although programming Pina Bausch at English National Ballet suggests an interesting dance mind willing to cut against the grain of entrenched expectations - financial or historical.

 

Ultimately, I think Tamara Rojo's programming will depend on what her remit was from the San Francisco Ballet board upon her hiring: Is the board's expectation that she will continue to adhere to the programming choices of her predecessors Helgi Tomasson and Lew Christensen, which would mean a continuance of George Balanchine and Balanchine-derived dance as the central inspiration? Or does she have leave, after 90 years, to look further afield - west across the Pacific to Asia (as she's already indicated) and south to Central and South America?

 

[bridiem]

5 hours ago, miliosr said:

Possokhov has made quite a lot for San Francisco Ballet - dating all the way back to 1997.

 

Maybe . . . although programming Pina Bausch at English National Ballet suggests an interesting dance mind willing to cut against the grain of entrenched expectations - financial or historical.

 

Ultimately, I think Tamara Rojo's programming will depend on what her remit was from the San Francisco Ballet board upon her hiring: Is the board's expectation that she will continue to adhere to the programming choices of her predecessors Helgi Tomasson and Lew Christensen, which would mean a continuance of George Balanchine and Balanchine-derived dance as the central inspiration? Or does she have leave, after 90 years, to look further afield - west across the Pacific to Asia (as she's already indicated) and south to Central and South America?

 

I don't think any new director of any standing would accept a 'remit' that required them to 'adhere to the programming choices' of their predecessors, and Rojo has clearly not done this. That doesn't necessarily mean that she will completely discard the company's choreographic traditions. It will be interesting to see what she does programme.

[miliosr]

4 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

I don't think any new director of any standing would accept a 'remit' that required them to 'adhere to the programming choices' of their predecessors, and Rojo has clearly not done this.

Since Helgi Tomasson programmed the 2023 season in its entirety and the programming hasn't changed, we don't know yet what Tamara Rojo will do or not do in terms of adhering to Tomasson's repertory choices.

 

There is a precedent at San Francisco Ballet for making a huge course correction in repertory and that precedent involved no less that Tomasson himself in 1985. Basically, he ditched everything that had come before him except for the Balanchine repertory that Lew Christensen and Michael Smuin had accumulated. I would hope that someone on the interviewing committee posed that scenario to each candidate. That way, the board won't be caught by surprise if the winning candidate (in this case, Rojo) makes across-the-board changes after an endless reign.

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, miliosr said:

Since Helgi Tomasson programmed the 2023 season in its entirety and the programming hasn't changed, we don't know yet what Tamara Rojo will do or not do in terms of adhering to Tomasson's repertory choices.

 

There is a precedent at San Francisco Ballet for making a huge course correction in repertory and that precedent involved no less that Tomasson himself in 1985. Basically, he ditched everything that had come before him except for the Balanchine repertory that Lew Christensen and Michael Smuin had accumulated. I would hope that someone on the interviewing committee posed that scenario to each candidate. That way, the board won't be caught by surprise if the winning candidate (in this case, Rojo) makes across-the-board changes after an endless reign.

 

Well yes, there is always a cross-over period when the new director has to work with what the previous director scheduled. But it will indeed be interesting to see how radical (or otherwise) Rojo's plans are when they are announced.

[miliosr]

12 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

But it will indeed be interesting to see how radical (or otherwise) Rojo's plans are when they are announced.

My admittedly foolish and forlorn hope is for Tamara Rojo to take a deep look at the repertories from the prior two directorships (Christensen/Smuin and Tomasson) and then unite the best pieces from each with her own tastes and interests; thereby forging a comprehensive repertory for the 21st century. But, as I wrote, foolish and forlorn for a whole host of reasons! 

Edited February 17, 2023 by miliosr

[bridiem]

4 hours ago, miliosr said:

My admittedly foolish and forlorn hope is for Tamara Rojo to take a deep look at the repertories from the prior two directorships (Christensen/Smuin and Tomasson) and then unite the best pieces from each with her own tastes and interests; thereby forging a comprehensive repertory for the 21st century. But, as I wrote, foolish and forlorn for a whole host of reasons! 

 

I hope your hope is NOT forlorn, miliosr!