DANCE REVIEW
‘Sonnets’ goes to the heart of the matter
By Janice Steinberg February 13, 2006

The language on commercial valentines leaves much to be desired in terms of poetry and emotional complexity. So, to inspire his valentine ballet, Javier Velasco turned to the master-poet of desire, wistfulness and delight in the beloved’s presence, the pang of absence, and all of the vagaries of love.

“Shakespeare’s Sonnets” provided the theme and title for the evening of romantic dances Velasco’s San Diego Ballet presented at the Lyceum Theatre last weekend. Lines from some 20 of the sonnets were also read on stage by actors Steve Gunderson and Gail Mackler, in this charming program, danced by an ensemble adept at San Diego Ballet’s blend of classical vocabulary and looser moves borrowed from modern and jazz dance.

Velasco, the company’s choreographer, is known for making ballet fun and accessible. In “Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” he set an informal tone immediately by having his two dozen or so dancers casually warming up on stage. Little groups mingled. Someone broke out and practiced a couple of leaps. The women worked their feet by going up on their toes.

In dim lighting, it was like getting a glimpse backstage and realizing that these are human beings – more supple and with far greater command of their bodies than the rest of us, but not some alien, exalted life-form.

That inviting air of informality pervaded the program, in which one dance flowed into the next. As one number concluded, the dancers for the next had already come onstage. Often, the two overlapping groups did a few movement phrases together before the first would leave. Identical paisley vests in muted tones, with just-above-the-knee skirts for the women and knee britches for the men, enhanced the seamless feel.

Gunderson and Mackler, seated at either side of the stage, wove their readings of lines from the sonnets into the tapestry, which also included a range of music, from the expected Elizabethan lute melodies and sprightly jigs to an international blend of Andean pipes, Japanese strings and more.

Bagpipe music, for instance, accompanied an assured solo by Rachel Sebastian. Sebastian has beautifully arched feet, shown off in a series of piqué turns, where she planted one toe in front of her, then cleanly rose onto that toe and turned.

Middle Eastern sounds set a seductive mood for a duet between Heather Falten and Askar Alimbetov. Falten was all jutting hips and lovely, fluid arms, as Alimbetov hovered and sometimes traced her body with his hands.

Guest artist Andrea Feier, a former Paul Taylor dancer, drew her expressive vocabulary from American Sign Language. In a dramatic, shades-of-Martha-Graham plié, she picked with her hands at the air. “Look in thy glass,” said Shakespeare’s line, and she mimed it.

Velasco mixes things up with the skill of a master chef throwing unlikely ingredients into a soup and making it taste divine, and he included Uma Suresh and three members of her Natyapriya classical Indian troupe.

Stamping hennaed feet to jingle their ankle bells, the dancers illustrated their sonnets’ words, miming trepidation or drinking a potion, for instance. Suresh choreographed this fascinating tutorial on this dance form, which often enacts spoken (but not English) stories.

The show’s seamlessness had some drawbacks. Particularly in the first half, too many of the ballet numbers looked alike. And the San Diego Ballet dancers impressed as an ensemble, but rarely as individuals – it felt like a welcome splash of cold water, in the 13th dance (of 22) on the program, to notice Christine Owen’s quickness and delicacy in the midst of a large-group dance, and be unable to take my eyes from her.

Nor was this a program for fouetté-counters, people who go to ballet to admire the dancers’ mastery of the most difficult steps, such as the whipping fouetté turns.

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It’s no mean trick, however, to create an ensemble that looks as coherent as San Diego Ballet’s. The larger-group numbers charmed with lively partnering and uniformly strong male dancers. Velasco’s sure eye for composition made the finale, a riot of duets and trios, sheer joy.

Janice Steinberg is a San Diego writer.
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