★★★★✰ "It’s not often that I’ve seen a Nutcracker receive a standing ovation, but as the curtain fell and Clara ran to greet her mother, there was nothing to do but stand and applaud."
Tag - Frances Chung
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet has elected to bring a recently filmed version of the ballet to its audiences as the first program of 2021. And what a lovely way to kick off the digital season!
★★★★★ A hundred monkeys might eventually type out Hamlet, but only a herd of unicorns on Ecstasy could come anywhere near Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet.
★★★★✰ Program C’s offerings spanned the choreographic spectrum, from pure movement to narrative threads to inventive theatricality. Every work on the bill impressed with its freshness and ingenuity.
★★★★✰ There’s nothing like watching a woman crush a man’s neck with her thighs to make you go hmm, maybe that whole #MeToo thing has legs.
★★★✰✰ This mixed triple bill is made up of work created on the company by artists in the SFB family: On a Theme of Paganini by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, Ibsen’s House by Principal Character dancer Val Caniparoli and Ghost in the Machine by Myles Thatcher, part of the corps de ballet since 2010.
San Francisco Ballet – Trio, Ghost in the Machine (premiere), Within the Golden Hour – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Myles Thatcher is an inventive young talent...
★★★★★ Pita’s Salome is pure postmodern dance-theater, and a five-star surprise on the Opera House stage.
★★★✰✰ It was a dark and stormy night – San Francisco Ballet couldn’t have designed a more apt and ominous atmosphere for the opening of Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein.
★★✰✰✰ The trouble with Program 2 is its centerpiece, choreographer-in-residence Yuri Possokhov’s new work 'Optimistic Tragedy'.
★★★★✰ The company’s first regular-season commission from Czech choreographer Jiří Bubeníček, "Fragile Vessels", is a 40-minute meditation on love, loss and reconciliation.
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Houston Ballet have come together in LA to celebrate William Forsythe probably the most influential ballet choreographer of his generation. Claudia Bauer reports on a fine night...
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet (SFB) saved the best for its last mixed bill of the 2016 season.
★★★★✰ It’s a treat to be in the theater when a dancer achieves a triumphant performance...
★★★✰✰ "But despite his high concept, Scarlett seemed to lose the thread halfway through, resorting to lascivious theatrics to complete the work..."
★★★★✰ "....that is what is marvelous about Forsythe's Pas/Parts. Would that more choreographers would offer that kind of brisk and bracing slap in the face."
★★★✰✰ By way of a défilé, the evening opened with the “Waltz of the Hours” from Balanchine and Danilova’s Coppélia ...Soloist Jennifer Stahl led two dozen girls from the SFB School, adorable in cotton-candy tutus.
The first time I saw San Francisco Ballet’s current production of The Nutcracker, a little boy sitting in front of us turned to his mother and whispered, “It’s magic!” Eleven years later, to the very day, it’s still a magical experience.
Swimmer is one man's journey from being the stereotypical breadwinner... to his own self-realisation in a kind of isolated freedom.
It’s a disconcerting feeling when you don’t respond to a piece that nearly everyone else agrees is revelatory. That’s the situation I find myself in with Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy.