On opening night, Sasha De Sola and Harrison James danced the early waltzing pas de deux with charm, but I was even more touched the following week by Katherine Barkman and Esteban Hernández in these roles—so perfectly matched in size, so irrepressibly tender, and so fluid through the considerable floorwork. Luca Ferrò was a wonder in both casts dancing the playful duet for two men—I would hate to be the dancer assigned to sync with him, as Ferrò can’t help besting pretty much anyone in pliability, ballon, and un-suppressible elegance of épaulement. The music for all of these episodes except the final pas de deux is by the contemporary Italian composer Ezio Bosso, who died five years ago; its looping phrases are both airy and yearning, like the encircling arms the dancers hold open for their fellow community members to slip through, and the orchestra played it transportingly. 

Wayne McGregor’s “Chroma” opened this bill—it was first danced here in 2011 but created in 2006 on the Royal Ballet, with San Francisco Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo in the originating cast. I had not expected to be so delighted by its return. Having seen further McGregor dances over the years, I’ve felt worn down by consistently bleak view of an angst-ridden, combative humanity. (I confess I have not yet seen his “Woolf Works,” recently acquired by American Ballet Theatre.) But “Chroma” gives these San Francisco dancers so much fast, meaty movement, and compared to other works in McGregor’s oeuvre it could even be called “fun,” blasting the audience as it does with White Stripes rock tunes orchestrated and arranged to sound like James Bond movie themes. Watching first-cast Nikisha Fogo and Cavan Conley sass through the whiplash phrases it was possible to get caught up in the sheer physical-emotional virtuosity—I even heard elderly patrons in the bathroom line at intermission describing how they “love to see the dancers wiggle their little butts,” a not-inaccurate description of the McGregor aesthetic. The really painful stuff doesn’t arrive until the later pas de deux, to more somber piano-driven music by Joby Talbot (who also arranged the White Stripes songs).