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Ocean motion By Rita Felciano 'WHY DOES IT always have to be so serious?" Michael Smuin quipped at the recent Izzie Awards as he stepped up to the podium to present an award. Is dance always "serious"? Of course not. But Smuin was talking about dance as entertainment, as a way for an audience to pass a pleasant evening without having too many demands made on them. Really good choreographers – like Mark Morris, Joe Goode, and Brenda Way – know they can make us smile even as they tell us something about ourselves and the world we live in. Smuin is something of a phenomenon. In a little more than a decade, he has created some 40 pieces for his Smuin Ballet. A rare midsize ensemble (15 dancers at present), the company offers steady local employment and presents regular seasons in several large Bay Area venues – an accomplishment that adds to Smuin's respectable career, which has spanned the San Francisco Ballet, the movies, and Broadway. Smuin can be a very good choreographer. Last month, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley presented Shinju, a Japanese-style Romeo and Juliet. The piece, now 30 years old, is compelling, thought-provoking, and yes, entertaining. His 1999 Les noces is a beautiful reading of its Stravinsky score. His ever popular Christmas Ballet has a number of attractive qualities. Smuin loves to choreograph duets, and some of them are quite lovely. So where's the beef? It comes from a sense that Smuin can be so much better than he often is. He has a good ear and a flair for a wide variety of musical styles. He knows ballet inside out and can merge it fluidly with modern dance. There are moments when that combination is magical. His sense of the stage is excellent. So why does he frequently restrict himself to such bare-bones choreography? The dancers he works with can do much more than he gives them. It is as if he doesn't trust his audience – or his dancers – to cope with anything that is not expressed in the most rudimentary language. In the process, he shortchanges them and us. Smuin's current program at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a good case in point. Running through next weekend are reprises of Chants d'Auvergne and Frankie and Johnny, and the West Coast premiere of Eliot Feld's Pacific Dances. Chants – set to the eponymous French folk songs by romanticist Joseph Canteloube, all but the last of which are sung on tape by the lush Kiri Te Kanawa – uses five couples who only meet at the beginning and at the end of the piece. It's a gentle examination of budding romances, friendly competitions, and polite encounters. The 12 sections are quite short but, unfortunately, not individually distinguished enough to accumulate into anything more than even a glimpse of who these people might be. Too often spectacle substitutes for expression. Still, the piece has its moments. The rivalry between Shannon Hurlburt and Pedro Gamino for the airborne Jessica Touchet in L'Aio de Torso is well-balanced and nicely paced. A lovely melancholy colors Pastourelle, performed by Vanessa Thiessen and David Strobbe. James Strong's partnering of Nicole Trerise, the company's reigning diva, veers between the stern and the playful. But there simply is nothing there in other sections, such as the male trio for Strobbe, Gamino, and Hurlburt. Frankie and Johnny takes its cue not from the Terrence McNally play but from the traditional ballad: It's the wonderfully melodramatic story of a woman who shot her man "because he was doin' her wrong." Smuin interprets the song as a mambo ballet. While the idea of Latin dance on pointe certainly has its attractions, you still need choreography that sizzles, is sexy, and swings. But Frankie has none of that. The piece is neither funny nor melodramatic; it's just flat, and some of it is just plain crude. Strong makes the most of his classic rat-lover role, as does Trerise as the other woman – but a stiff Celia Fushille-Burke comes off as an unlikely Frankie. The inclusion of Feld's Pacific Dances expands on the company's recent trend toward introducing non-Smuin choreography into the repertory. Company members Hurlburt and Amy Seiwert have both choreographed for their fellow dancers (and both will have world premieres next season), but Feld is the first outside choreographer to be presented. Pacific proves an excellent choice. The Hawaiian music (played on tape on slack-key guitar) leads Feld to an all-female nonet, which feels like a mix of hula and Busby Berkeley cheekiness. In bobby socks, silver pointe shoes, and white unitards, the women undulate, rock their hips, float their arms, and flow in and out of unison like lapping wavelets. Overall, Pacific is fun, entertaining, and yet touching – a good choice for the dancers, the audience, and Smuin himself. Smuin Ballet performs Wed/11-Sat/14, 8 p.m. (also Sat/14, 2 p.m.); Sun/15, 2 and 7 p.m. (gala performance Sun/15, 4 p.m.), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, S.F. $40-$60. (415) 978-2787, www.smuinballet.org. Program repeats May 27-28, 8 p.m. (also May 28, 2 p.m.), Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. $41-$50. (925) 943-7469. Also runs June 1-4, 8 p.m. (also June 4, 2 p.m.); June 5, 2 p.m., Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, Castro at Mercy, Mountain View. $36-$50. (650) 903-6000. |
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