Smuin Ballet opened its spring series and the climax of its 20th anniversary season Friday evening at the Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, with the kind of program one hopes to see more of from this source in the coming decade. This news-making bill featured two amiable premieres by familiar choreographers, both of whom capitalized on the remarkably high technical standards exhibited by the 16 dancers in a variety of material.
Here were the protein and carbs of the program. The company was also wise in assigning the choreography of late founder Michael Smuin to where it belongs, on the dessert course, where it could be sampled by the already sated palate. One might be excused for departing early from the table.
You feel that this is a chamber company prepared to face the artistic challenges of the future. Under Artistic and Executive Director Celia Fushille, the male wing has acquired a sleek, muscular look. The women seem more individualized, intense and mature at the moment; one of the more striking of the group, Jane Rehm, departs shortly for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
Ten of those dancers aced the balletic rigors of Val Caniparoli’s droll “Tutto Eccetto il Lavandino” (“Everything But the Kitchen Sink”). This is a work with few transitions, one that is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As bits of Vivaldi violin concertos blast from the YBCA amplification system, the cast (with the women in pointe shoes and making the most of them) pose in unison, indulge all manner of florid hand gestures, drop into sprint preparations, jeté across the stage, adjust their balances, adorn their movement with elegant brisés and launch canons of traveling pliés.
The men, in Sandra Woodall‘s soothing green costumes, take time off to flip the women from one pair of waiting arms to another. Then, they all regroup, huddling, shaking, shivering and (unfortunately) groaning, to the delight of the audience. Caniparoli has endeavored to create a ballet comprised almost entirely of non sequiturs. But he is too experienced a choreographer not to leaven his piece with less frantic moments. They come in a trio of duets. Erin Yarbrough toys with Aidan DeYoung‘s affections. Rehm gets serious with Joshua Reynolds. In a series of lifts, Christian Squires gets even more serious with Ben Needham-Wood.
Resident choreographer Amy Seiwert‘s “But Now I Must Rest” couldn’t be more different. Her tribute to the memory of the late Cape Verde singer and cultural icon Cesária Évora features six of her finer recordings. Woodall has dressed everyone in skirt-sarongs; the men go topless and both the texture and mood is sensuous in a relaxed manner. The humidity of the tropics is everywhere in the dipping bodies and the rolling arms of the dancers who float in and out of this paradise.
I suspect this dance will bring more than one observer to an appreciation of Évora’s infectious art, but it’s hard to see the singer’s pleas for social justice in these hazy routines. Squires is intended to represent the soul of “Sao Tomé” (one of Évora’s classic records), but the choreography suddenly moves on to another ensemble when you want it to explore in depth.
Still, Seiwert’s response to the popular music of another culture feels genuine on both the social and musical levels. Smuin’s 2001 responses to an imperishable American artist in “Dancin’ With Gershwin” (nine excerpts of which were revived Friday) now look synthetic. Old recordings accompany routines that are intended to wow, but only Rehm’s soulful solo to “Summertime” finds an emotional connection with the music.