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The ascendants 1PTU #BMMFU DPOUJOVFT JUT BNCJUJPVT SJTF By Rita Felciano
like huge sheaves of wheat hung upside down; at one point, they were lowered, presumably for the dancers to interact with. Few of them did. So what was the DANCE Though only in its fourth season, Robert Dekkers’ point? The distinct character of each of the ten or so Post:Ballet has already gained an enthusiastic, impressections of Pierce’s score for five violins, however, was sively large following that has allowed the company to a pleasure to hear. move from the Cowell to the Herbst to this year’s Lam The evening opened with the reworked Colouring Research Theater at Yerba Buena Center for II from 2011, danced with great authority by the Arts. It’s easy to see the reason for Ashley Flaner and Domenico Luciano. Dekkers’ success. The piece traced the making of a pas While his dance making is de deux, developing at the same time clearly ballet-based, his works have as Enrico Quintero’s creation of a an expansive sense of freedom large, calligraphy-inspired paintthat makes them welcoming and ing. The dancers, approaching easy on the eye. By choosing to each other from opposite sides, perform in the summer when added another gesture with other companies are on break, each encounter, suggesting an he can also work with highly almost filmic sense of accumulatrained professionals otherwise tion. Daniel Berkman’s score, unavailable to a small (ten-perperformed live, contributed his son) ensemble like his. This year own voice to this intriguing prothey came from Houston Ballet cess. This was watching visual and and Ballet Arizona, as well as the kinetic art in the making, and it was local Smuin Ballet, Alonzo King LINES a delight. However, Dekkers standing on Ballet, and Company C Contemporary the sidelines, cueing the process, seemed Ballet. intrusive. He should have trusted his artists. Perhaps most intriguing is the ease Sixes and Seven, also from 2011, is a with which Dekkers’ choreography solo, here danced delicately yet firmly embraces the ground and the air as by Jessica Collado. This was richly one liquid continuum. His dancvaried choreography in which ers crawl, slither, and slide along the dancer made full use of her the floor like billowing smoke body, including an excellent use — and then rise into space as if of gestural language. At times, born to it. Collado appeared to withdraw The world premiere for into herself, but she also reactseven dancers, field the presed to invisible external forces ent shifts, is probably Dekkers’ that impinged on her. You got most ambitious piece yet. It a sense that she was living in is a problematic work. A cola rich world. If the use of an laboration with architects Robert excerpt from Philip Glass’s Einstein Gilson and Catherine Caldwell at the Beach meant to suggest some and a commissioned score, perkind of cosmic existence, the choice formed live by Matthew Pierce, it also was perfect. in n o cr phot os by tricia features gorgeous magenta body-hugging Last year’s When in Doubt ended awkcostumes by Christine Darch, and a richly varied wardly in a wobbly pyramid, and used a distracting lighting design by David Robertson. word-and-sound score by Jacob Wolkenhauer. But Dekkers According to the program notes, field examines comshowed considerable choreographic chops in the way he plex relationships. Within a given set of parameters, the used his septet of dancers both in unisons and in smaller piece also allows for individual decision-making by everyunits. With the women on pointe walking in pliÊ, and one involved. It added up to a lot of in-the-moment choicRobertson’s stark lighting that pulled the dancers across es by a lot of people, and the results did not convince. the stage with a quasi magnetic force, When began to Visually, however, field was a feast for the senses. feel ominous. This was even true for the two very differThe dancers flew at each other like arrows, bunched up ent duets for Raychel Weiner and Christian Squire, and into swaying unisons as if buffeted by some gale force Collado and Jane Hope Rehm. wind. They gathered on individual squares of light, Dressing the women in black leotards and the topresponded to each other across the stage, and seemed to less men in black tights was inspired because the dancers walk on water. They rolled into somersaults and carecould almost disappear into each other. The women were fully explored and yanked at each other. What I missed dark from the waist up, the men from the waist down. was an encompassing frame that held these individual The color scheme abstracted personal interactions and units together. Also, a sense of uncertainty marred some sequences into two-dimensional patterns — thus foregothe canons and unisons. ing overly eager tendencies to read narrative intentions The two designers came up with what looked into Dekkers’ choreography. 2 arts@sfbg.com
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July 24 - 30, 2013 / SFBG.com
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