This program certainly covered the gamut of this company's talents. It started with Raymonda, Act 3. This is a classical, traditional ballet and is hardly ever performed as a whole. I'm not even really clear what the story is. Act 3 is a wedding scene set in medieval Hungary, which means we get the chance to see great variations and character dancing. The set is lavish and the costumes beautiful and glittery. Vanessa Zahorian handled the famed solo variation with a lot of panache. My toes hurt just watching all those bourrees.
The second piece is Raku, new from last year. The music is by a member of the SF Ballet Orchestra, the story set in ancient Japan based around a love triangle at a temple. We were lucky to see Yuan Yuan Tan perform the female role. She's remarkable for her flexibility as well as expressiveness. This is a beautiful, tragic piece with strong dancing by all three leads. The set uses moveable pieces with projection to good effect. This is a knockout newer piece for the company, in a contemporary vein but maintaining a story line.
The third piece is brand new this year and choreographed by the artistic director of the Scottish Ballet, who I saw last year and thoroughly enjoyed. The music is John Adams. Four pairs of dancers are highlighted in the piece, with various groups of corps dancers in the background. Everyone wears shorts unitards with varying colour schemes. The costumes were great for highlighting the dancers muscularity, but I found it hard to tell individuals apart and the soloists from the corps. The dancing was fantastic (the company is full of strong dancers) but the music wore on me after awhile. While this piece is contemporary like the second one, it's more abstract with very little sense of story (aside from whatever each individual audience member may read into it).
The second piece is Raku, new from last year. The music is by a member of the SF Ballet Orchestra, the story set in ancient Japan based around a love triangle at a temple. We were lucky to see Yuan Yuan Tan perform the female role. She's remarkable for her flexibility as well as expressiveness. This is a beautiful, tragic piece with strong dancing by all three leads. The set uses moveable pieces with projection to good effect. This is a knockout newer piece for the company, in a contemporary vein but maintaining a story line.
The third piece is brand new this year and choreographed by the artistic director of the Scottish Ballet, who I saw last year and thoroughly enjoyed. The music is John Adams. Four pairs of dancers are highlighted in the piece, with various groups of corps dancers in the background. Everyone wears shorts unitards with varying colour schemes. The costumes were great for highlighting the dancers muscularity, but I found it hard to tell individuals apart and the soloists from the corps. The dancing was fantastic (the company is full of strong dancers) but the music wore on me after awhile. While this piece is contemporary like the second one, it's more abstract with very little sense of story (aside from whatever each individual audience member may read into it).
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