Soaring dance and intense drama in San Francisco Ballet’s Digital Programme 5

Online
April 24, 2021

David Mead

San Francisco Ballet’s latest programme in their digital season has something for everyone. Helgi Tomasson’s 7 for Eight is an often work that tosses in some buoyant allegro among its more sensual and sublime adagio moments. For drama and some superb dance-acting, there’s Cathy Marston’s Snowblind, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s intense and tragic novella, Ethan Frome. Finally, David Dawson’s Anima Animus is dance that soars; a ballet that never stops stretching the technique of its cast to the limit.

Tomasson’s aptly titled 7 for Eight features eight dancers in a series of solo, duet and ensemble sections to seven selections from keyboard concertos by J.S. Bach. It gets off to an elegant start with a slow, thoughtful adagio pas de deux that has an almost dreamlike quality. Tiit Helimets is very much there as a support and to show his partner Yuan Yuan Tan off (but what a cavalier!) but both looked gorgeous dancing in David Finn’s single, unchanging small rectangle of light.

Sandra Woodall’s classy costumes, all-black lace basques and chiffon skirts for the women, and simple tight black trousers and shirts for the men, add to the effect.

Each of the subsequent movements takes on its own mood, the choreography fitting the music like a glove. Despite its frequent complexity, the dancers make the choreography look easy. Everything flows beautifully. As in Dawson’s later Anima Animus, it’s very rare to see a preparation. Every landing is pinpoint certain too.

Vanessa Zahorian and Gennadi Nedvigin are buoyant in the brighter second movement, which skips along happily. The third, for Elizabeth Powell, Koto Ishihara and Taras Domitro is light and smooth. Powell has this delicious way of seeming to suspend movement, suspend time even, before speeding off again.

The airy fourth sees Nedvigin and Lonnie Weeks in an unusually subtle male duet before they dance with their partners, Zahorian and Koto Ishihara. Next, the fleet-footed Domitro returns for a solo full of tricky petit allegro that eats up the space. For the sixth, Tomasson cleverly not only brings back the opening couple, but starts it exactly as their previous dance finished, making it appear a continuation. Lastly, the finale is a thrilling ride as the whole ensemble is brought together for the only time.

Wharton’s Ethan Frome is a classic tale of despair, forbidden and repressed emotion, all with a sexual undercurrent. The title character is a struggling farmer married to the difficult, suspicious and ailing Zeena. When her attractive cousin Mattie is taken on as a home help, Ethan soon finds himself drawn to her, and the possibility for happiness and love he so craves.

To Philip Feeney’s arrangement of music by Amy Beach, Arthur Foote and Arvo Pärt, plus original contributions by himself, Marston focuses in on the three central characters. As Ethan, Ulrik Birkkjaer is a man trapped. He watches the villagers having a good time but cannot join in. One almost feels he is resigned to his fate; until Mathilde Froustey as Mattie shows up. In the book, she wears only a cherry-coloured scarf but Marston and designer Patrick Kinmonth have her in a red dress that stands out starkly against the greyness of the other designs.

Although quickly attracted to each other, Mattie is no femme fatale. That she loves life is clear but when she dances with Ethan, there’s no erotic passion, more a sense of a couple thrown together by fate. While they may desire, and are constantly drawn to each other, the shadow of his wife looms large. Helping in that is Kimmonth’s clever minimalist, split-level set that allows us to see Zeena upstairs in her bedroom, which thanks to James F. Ingalls’ atmospheric lighting appears to float in mid-air.

I found myself caring little for Ethan or Mattie. Maybe that’s due in part to Sarah Van Patten’s outstanding portrayal of Zeena. She is strong of mind but her frailty is there for all to see. Her pain and feelings are writ large through every movement, every look. When she an Ethan dance, when he carries her upstairs, she is quite literally a weight around his neck.

Apart from that early depiction of the villagers, the ensemble is more a metaphor for the turmoil in the hearts and minds of the main characters and the ever-falling snow. While occasionally effective, especially as the latter in which Ethan and Mattie repeatedly throw themselves as they attempt to commit suicide, they do sometimes distract from the main action, however.

Marston’s end is not quite as grim as Wharton’s although it is bittersweet. As the three come together closely, supporting each other in turn making visual the fact that their lives now all dependent on each other, there’s a hint of forgiveness. Or perhaps it’s just resignation to the hand fate has dealt and that has thrown them under the same roof for the rest of their lives.

Dawson’s Anima Animus brings a complete change of mood. It’s sleek, sophisticated and stylish. To the glorious strains Ezio Bosso’s Violin Concerto No.1 (Esoconcerto), the opening and closing movements are a feast of soaring non-stop movement. Led by Maria Kochetkova and Sofiane Sylve, dancers rush on and off. Formations constantly change as they turn, spin and leap. Images of gulls swooping over tall cliffs (arms are often held high like wings) kept popping into my mind, although Yumiko Takeshima’s gorgeous grey, black and white figure-hugging costumes against John Otto’s white set with asymmetrical black borders has a part to play in that too.

In what is very much a ballet of today, Dawson hangs on to but constantly pushes the classical vocabulary. It’s exciting from start to finish, even in the silky, slower, second movement that features a lot of complex partnering. It was a fantastic way to round off yet another super programme from San Francisco Ballet.

San Francisco Ballet’s Programme 5 is available to May 12, 2021. Visit https://www.sfballet.org/ for details and access packages.