I generally like seeing works by Jerome Robbins. I find that it has a watchability that lends itself to accessibility—usually easy on the eyes, often lighthearted, occasionally quite profound.

San Francisco Ballet concluded their normal season this year with four of his works in honor of his centenary: Opus 19/The Dreamer, The Cage, Other Dances, and Fancy Free. I would have chosen different ballets, but as it is these four do a good job of showing Robbins’ range.

Opus 19/The Dreamer is the only piece of the four I hadn’t seen previously. I found it surprisingly derivative for Robbins, with many steps that seemed plucked from various Balanchine ballets. There’s no shame in borrowing steps—everyone does—but it stood out to me because Robbins usually has such a clear voice of his own.

Several people I know were most excited to see The Cage. Choreographed in 1951, The Cage is about a group of female insects whose job is to trap and kill the men who come across them. They’re actually very much like the Wilis in Giselle, although without the bitter back story. The entire group of dancers was committed to their characters. The diminutive Maria Kochetkova brought a ferocity twice her size as the Novice, while Sofiane Sylve’s Queen displayed a dispassionate grandeur.

The ballet I was most looking forward to seeing was Other Dances, which until October I had never seen but had always wanted to. (I saw ABT dance it in the fall.) Created for Baryshnikov and Makarova, Other Dances is an extended pas de deux designed to display the full range of the dancers, from quietly lyrical to boldly virtuosic. This is the fourth and last ballet Robbins created to music by Frédéric Chopin, who clearly inspired him. The others are the comical The Concert, the romantic In the Night, and his masterpiece Dances at a Gathering. In the Night was performed at this season’s opening night gala. Intimate and melancholy, it was a rocky opener. It would have been nice to revisit the ballet as part of the season, perhaps with more rehearsal time. In the Night is the companion piece, in a sense, to Dances at a Gathering. Dances seems to me set on a warm summer’s day, by and large bright in its choreography and presentation. In the Night is quieter, smaller, darker, perhaps a fall evening with a chill in the air. Other Dances is cheerier still than Dances at a Gathering. It approaches effervescence.

Closing the evening was Fancy Free, the Leonard Bernstein ballet that inspired the musical On the Town. The cast brought a wonderful freshness to their roles—perhaps because every one of them was a debut. As the sailors, Benjamin Freemantle, Esteban Hernandez, and Lonnie Weeks gave happy performances. In a bit of bold casting, none of the three are principal dancers (though as of this writing, Freemantle and Weeks have been promoted to soloist, joining Hernandez). Their primary female foils are, however, and Sasha De Sola and Dores André seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.

I attended this performance on a Tuesday. The following day, at work, people asked what I had thought. I admitted that I was a bit underwhelmed, and then confessed to a concern that I was becoming jaded. But I’m not being fair, either to the performance or to myself. I’m not jaded, because I still get excited every time I go to the ballet. And by underwhelmed, I really mean unmoved. The dancing was very good. I liked at least half of the choreography. But I didn’t feel a whole lot, I wasn’t touched. And that is okay. Not every performance is going to speak to you. And since you never know what will speak to you, better to see it all than to miss out on it completely.

San Francisco Ballet:  Program 05: Robbins: Ballet & Broadway
March 20, 2018, at 7:30 pm, at the War Memorial Opera House
Opus 19/The Dreamer, The Cage, Other Dances, Fancy Free