Into the Wilde
At a time when the arts in America are under attack and many small dance companies are quietly disappearing, San Francisco’s dance scene—for decades second in its volume of activity only to New York—still has a pulse.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet. The meeting had future box office returns on the line. This was San Francisco Ballet’s third annual August presentation by Stanford Live, an engagement that is not just a back-to-school warm-up for the company, but also a way of convincing new South Bay and Silicon Valley fans to travel an hour north to San Francisco for the 2024 season come next January. Rojo is going to need these newcomers for programming that looks quite different from her predecessor Helgi Tomasson’s. She succeeded in offering plenty of whiz-bang spectacle to convert fresh balletomanes, despite a closer that seemed to leave many scratching their heads.
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At a time when the arts in America are under attack and many small dance companies are quietly disappearing, San Francisco’s dance scene—for decades second in its volume of activity only to New York—still has a pulse.
PlusNoé Soulier enters the space without warning, and it takes a few seconds for the chattering audience to register the man now standing before them, dressed simply in a grey t-shirt and black pants, barefoot.
PlusIn the first few seconds that the lights come up on BalletX at the Joyce Theater, an audience member murmurs her assent: “I love it already.”
PlusThe right foil can sharpen the distinct shapes of a choreographic work, making it appear more completely itself through the comparison of another.
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