covering the dance scene in the San Francisco Bay Area

September 22 , 2003

Note:   September 29, 2003:  Yes!  This is still last week's edition.  We've moved!!!  We now have a site for all three branches of our online reviews section of DanceView:  The DanceView Times, where DanceViewWest, DanceViewNY and DanceViewDC now live.  We'll be moving these files there eventually.  In the meantime, come take a peak!

This week, Paul Paris reviews Akram Khan and Ann Murphy, Sonya Delwaide (for DanceViewWest) and there are reviews from the other cities as well. 

DanceViewWest will still have its own home. If you like, you can just bookmark that portion of the site.  And we're still committed to covering the San Francisco Bay Area -- nothing has changed except the location. This consolidation, we hope, will increase the readership of all three section, and help us all to become aware of what's going in dance around the country-- and the world (we'll have occasional guest columns from people in Europe, Asia and the Middle East).

Still Oakland's Exasperating Ballet

Oakland Ballet
Paramount Theater
September 12-13, 2003

Reviewed by Paul Parish

Years ago, my colleague Ann Murphy wrote a piece called "Oakland's Exasperating Ballet"—she hit the nail on the head. That is the perennial subject.

It could hardly be otherwise, given the size of their budget. They're a regional ballet company that often used to dance with more elan and conviction than companies in the big leagues, at least for the last ballet on the program, after leaving you yawning for the first hour. You went with that because A) there were only so many dancers; B) they didn't have the rehearsal time nor the new shoes nor even a stage with any great depth or width or even enough lighting instruments, despite the glamour of the art-deco Paramount Theater they usually performed in, which they could never fill; and C) because they would always do something that would take your breath away before the evening was out.

full article

Separate Worlds

Quasar Dance Company
Lend Me Your Eyes (Empresta-me Teus Olhos)
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
September 17, 2003

Reviewed by Rita Felciano

In its first Bay Area appearance, as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Quasar Dance Company from Brazil gave its audience two shows for the price of one. Lend Me Your Eyes’ (Empresta-me Teus Olhos) trajectory switched gears mid-stream so drastically that the piece might as well have been cut into two. Each half ran on its own track without enough of a connective tissue to hold the two sections together beyond the fact that the dancers used a similar vocabulary. This was an evening where you had to be satisfied with spectacular dancing. If Henrique Rodovalho’s choreography had been up to the level of his extraordinary dancers, it might have been an exceptional show.

With Lend Me, Rodovalho set himself the task of presenting two opposing ways of life: the city vs. the village, in anonymity or within a community. Not exactly original, these ideas have floated around since the early 19th century when cities lost their allure as places of safety. What was moderately interesting was the consistency with which Rodovalho realized the two visions.

full article

Need to catch up?  Our back issues are all on line, in the archives.

SEPT 23: WOMEN’S WORK SERIES
The bi-monthly showcase presents Joe Landini and Eliza Perkins in “Score;” Vicki Gunter and Carla Service in “Keys;” NATya Indian Dance in “Shakti” (“Energy Entity”); Candace M. Younghan’s “In Her Silence;” and Ellie Leonhart in “Take My Space.”
Sept. 23, 8pm, Venue 9, 252 Ninth St., San Francisco, (415) 289-2000, www.venue9.com.

SEPT 26: PECK PECK DANCE ENSEMBLE
The company performs works investigating issues of identity as part of an AIRSpace residency.
Sept. 26, 8pm, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, 1519 Mission St., San Francisco, (415) 554-0402, www.jonsimscenter.org.

SEPT 26-28: COLLABORATION! DANCE AND MUSIC 2003
Ten pair of choreographers and composers premiere new work. The choreographers? Carmen Carnes, Doree Susanne Clark, Jamaica Janowicz, Cynthia Anne Krempetz, Joe Landini, Amber Megan McCall, Janie Mikalunus, Charlotte Moraga, Sharlyn Sawyer, and Lyya Tawil.
Sept. 26-27, 7:30pm, Sept. 28, 2pm, Marin Center Showcase Theater, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael, (415) 499-6800, www.danceoutre.org.

SEPT 26-28: SONYA DELWAIDE
This Montreal transplant’s dances can be quirky, cinematic, or gut-wrenching, but they’re almost always beautifully constructed. Six guest dancers from Quebec join Delwaide in her final stage performance for five Bay Area premieres and the duet “Du Balcon,” with Jason Caldeira.
Sept. 26-27, 8pm, Sept. 28, 7pm, ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco, (415) 863-9834, www.odcdance.org.

—Rachel Howard

Calendar Listings courtesy of IN DANCE, a FREE monthly publication of Dancers' Group at http://www.dancersgroup.org

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