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In
a high point of the
season, San
Francisco Ballet
presented four
pieces by the major
Dutch choreographer
Hans van Manen. The
pieces have been
danced by the
company at least
once over the past
three decades, but
this is the first
time they have been
gathered into a full
evening in homage to
the choreographer.
Van Manen was
artistic director,
then artist in
residence at the
Nederland Dans
Theater and the
Dutch National
Ballet. Ninety-two
years of age, the
old master is still
at work and was
present to instruct
the SF Ballet for
shining results.
Van Manen's
influence reaches
back to the 50s and
60s, when he was
still dancing and
developing his style
of seamlessly
bridging classical
and contemporary
ballet. Compared to
Balanchine's
single-handed
recreation of
American ballet, van
Manen was one of
several European
choreographers
renewing ballet:
John Cranko, Maurice
Béjart, John
Neumeier among them.
Revisiting his work
now, his abstract
chorography seems as
relevant, modern and
provocative as
Balanchine's.
 Grosse Fuge
One of his major pieces, Grosse Fuge (Grand Fugue, 1971) or Grand Fugue opened the program, set to two different movements
for string quartet by Beethoven, with costumes by van Manen
himself. It was a delight to witness how he empowers his ballerinas
and achieves a power balance between his male and female dancers
. Four males with nude torsos, in wide aikido warrior pants, strut
their stuff, flex their muscles and ball their fists, dive into deep pliés
and corkscrew pirouettes. While they take bold leaps across the
stage, four females, looking like children or waifs stand in the back,
seemingly vulnerable and exposed in their underwear-tunics and
without pointe shoes.
 Wei Wang
The apparent gender discrepancy made me flash to Pina Bausch's Sacre du printemps with its horde of males dancing the females
into the ground. But the opposite occurs. The fragile "girls"
(Jennifer Stahl, Wona Park, Nikisha Fogo and Dores Andre)
approach the men (Max Cauhorn, Wei Wang, Aaron Robison and
Fernando Carratala Coloma) with an attitude of almost cocky self
-assurance and pride.
Whereas in classical ballet the men turn the women around in
circles, here the women circle the men as if to take their measure.
The women initiate and engage in what can only be described as
"dancing together" instead of being displayed and made to dance.
"YES, the women are partnered by the men," Ted Brandsen, the
current director of the Dutch National Ballet and a collaborator of
van Manen, said in an interview, "But they decide to be partnered."
 Fernando Carratala Coloma, Dores Andre
Interestingly, this egalitarian approach also profits the men who
don't have to stand in place while manipulating their ballerinas,
lugging them through the air and waiting for their solo turns. Van
Manen makes them dance with equal amounts of steps and
inventiveness.
 Jennifer Stahl, Max Cauthorn
The bravado of the male leader of group, Max Cauthorn, resonates
with Balanchine's seminal Apollo in his early work Apollon
Musagète, with four instead of three "muses" as guides. And there
are other elements recalling Balanchine, especially van Manen's
extraordinary musicality. Grosse Fuge (as well as the other ballets
on the program) was a masterful demonstration that great
choreographers are musical magicians who translate, reshape and
reinvent a score through the bodies of their dancers.
 Aaron Robison, Nikisha Fogo
Van Manen, like Balanchine, created a new body language, in
particular through a strikingly different arm position. Instead of the
usual ninety-degree "first position" with both arms stretched out at
shoulder height, van Manen's dancers raise them several degrees
higher, like slightly upward reaching branches of a tree. Hands are
held open like little bushels of leaves. The effect is fascinating,
changing the traditional ballet moves and making them new, as if
setting accents like exclamation points. It subtly raises the weight of
movements to the upper body, creates a new harmony between the
torso and the legs. At moments, the loose, feathery hands raised
upwards transform the dancers into new creatures: they suddenly
seem to belong more to realms of birds or plants than to the more
pedestrian mortals we are used to.
And there is the persistent erotic tinge that van Manen brings to
ballet. In Grosse Fuge, he adds daring twists to the old story of
sexual attraction: at the end of the first movement, the men
suddenly disrobe. They shed their warrior pants and appear in tight
belted shorts. Seeming more vulnerable, they go down on their
knees in front of the women, worshiping them with their faces in
the women's groins. In another moment, the women are on the
ground, boldly reach up and grab the men by their belt buckles.
With a tight grip, they both lead the men on and let themselves be
swept away.
Variation for Two Couples
The second piece, Variation for Two Couples (2012, is a sparse, but
sensuous meditation set to a romantic adagio by Benjamin Britten
mixed with modern takes on Bach and Astor Piazzolla. The
choreography adopts an almost purist simplicity of steps and their
variations in an architectural space of two circles of light. Each
couple dances separately in their circle, at times watched by the
other couple. Imperious Francis Chung dances with Joseph Walsh;
willowy Sasha Mukhamedov with Aaron Robison. There are
charming moments when the couples take on ballroom dancing
steps. The whole piece is performed with slow, tender
concentration and exquisite lines that made me think of the laws of
planetary bodies. They finally touch and share the stage, briefly
melt into each other and vanish, leaving the audience in an audible
gasp.
Solo
The third pieces, Solo (1997), set to Bach, is in fact a series of three
brief solos for male dancers, an exuberant show of masculine
energy. Cavan Conley, Victor Prigent and Alexis Francisco Valdes
are playful and crack the audience up with funny headshakes that
punctuate their bravura.
5 Tangos
5 Tangos (1977), turned out to be the perfect crowd pleaser to end
the show, with music by Astor Piazzolla and eye-candy costumes in
black and blood-red. There was nothing particularly surprising or
revelatory in the repeated movements of strutting, syncopated step
delays and spitfire-fast changes of direction. The rhythm kept
flipping the women's dresses from black to red with a sexy allure.
I was surprised that van Manen stayed rather conventional and
balletic here, avoiding more showy ballroom acrobatics or Milonga
positions.
But there was an unconventional duo for two men, Fernando
Carratala Coloma and Victor Prigent. The lead couples, Esteban
Hernandez and Dores Andre, tangoed with passionate energy and
precision. It was a gay, rousing ending to a remarkable night.
Photos: Chris Hardy
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