The best thing about Divertimento No. 15 is the costumes. Bow-bedecked in pastel shades, you can imagine them worn in a pavilion on a Viennese summer’s day while Mozart plays his Divertimento in the background.
George Balanchine choreographed Divertimento No. 15 in 1956 for New York City Ballet during its City Center years. City Center is a smaller theater, and Divertimento’s chamber-sized cast would play well on such a stage. There’s a smallness of scale to the work that I was not expecting, and the opera house felt too large for it. Nor was I expecting the ballet to be so highly academic, so technical. Ballet students should see this because every step that you do in class is right there onstage. Angelo Greco in particular brought a notable “stick the landing” quality to his many jumps and turns, while Koto Ishihara delivered her variation with a sunny playfulness.
Divertimento moves. It’s over 30 minutes long, but the three sections meld seamlessly one into the next. Each of the leads has a variation, and they run right together with barely a breath in between. My favorite moment came toward the end of the whole ballet. All five soloist women were in a line, dancing together. One at a time, each broke from her spot for a brief moment of her own. The rest continued dancing behind her, and then each rejoined, picking up as though she had never left.
From Mozart to Beethoven—Benjamin Millepied’s Appassionata was next on the bill. Appassionata is divided into two sections for three color-coded couples, although they often did not dance with their mates. I find this perplexing. Why color code them if they’re not going to dance together? Opening the second section was a lengthy pas de deux for Dores André and Ulrik Birkkjaer. The audience loved it, responding with loud applause at its conclusion. I must admit that I was too busy wondering whether it was an homage to Antonin Preljocaj’s Le Parc, with it’s shapeless white tunic and kiss, to pay much attention to the choreography! By the end of the ballet, the women had changed from their stylish (and fitted) dresses and pointe shoes to nightshirts and ballet slippers with their hair loose. As the curtain came down, my reaction to the piece as a whole was simply, “Why?”
And then from Beethoven to M83! Justin Peck’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, substituted somewhat last minute for David Dawson’s Anima Animus (both new at last year’s Unbound festival), was the evening’s closer. I liked the piece much better this time around, although I missed Sarah Van Patten in the first pas de deux with Luke Ingham. I had certain expectations about the ballet at its premiere, some of which weren’t matched. This time, I was able to watch without those expectations and look at the work with fresh eyes. The main thing is that Dores André was fantastic in it. She’s nonstop energy and she rocked those silver leggings like a superstar. The other thing is that the ballet is, to me, quite melancholy. Despite the energy, and the bright lights and the shiny costumes and, most of all, the sneakers, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is not notably happy. It is, however, fun to watch, and full of dancing.
San Francisco Ballet—along with nearly the entire ballet world, it seems—is making an effort to show audiences that ballet is “not all tutus and tiaras.” This was clear from the Unbound premieres last season, and it was clear at the gala last month, when at final bows there was only one tutu onstage. And yet the three very different pieces that comprised this mixed bill were all recognizably ballet, despite ranging from tutus to tennis shoes. As their current advertising campaign proclaims insistently: This is ballet.
San Francisco Ballet: Program 2: Kaleidoscope
February 12, 2019, at 7:30 pm at the War Memorial Opera House
Divertimento No. 15, George Balanchine; Appassionata, Benjamin Millepied; Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, Justin Peck
Going to the Ballet 