Saturday, May 5, 2018

Boundless --- Day 7/66

Walk: PGCC, de Young Museum, SF Ballet
Distance: 4.5 miles

Here in San Francisco Everybody Can Have Their  Dream

SF Ballet is ending their season with a series titled "Unbound," new works that are 'unbound' from classical ballet requirements including steps, costumes, scenery,  and probably other aspects of ballet Ciwt is unaware of.  Ciwt went to Program C today, and wow!  Often in ballet there are a lot of graceful dances and then one or two sequences that have strong men leaping and doing intensely athletic things like Russian squat and kick dances.  The audience goes crazy.

Well, in Program C, virtually every moment of every dance was high stepping, soaring jumps, every athletic move you can think of from dance, yoga, wrestling, skating, you name it as long as it requires high stamina and perfect muscular training.  For the sheer athleticism it was superb, but you wouldn't want all ballet to be like this.  The stage was bare, there were extended periods with only one dancer, no music and no particular understanding what the dancer was up to.  Something gorgeous and precise, but what?  Also a lot of the moves, leaps and carries were clearly more dangerous and theatrical than time-honored classical ones (which are dangerous enough). 

Under the artistic direction of Helgi Tomasson, SF Ballet has moved into world-renowned territoty.  It is consistently, exciting, stimulating, thought-provoking, stunningly elegant and committed - so hats off to them for the courage of taking it 12 new dances further into "Unbound" territory.



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