San Francisco is fortunate to have one of the best ballet companies in the world. The San Francisco Ballet “New Works Festival” definitely makes a great evening out. Who doesn’t like getting dressed up and going downtown to the lavishly decorated Opera House? It is hard not to be effected by the contagious energy that consumes the Opera House after an amazing show, when every single member of the audience gives applause after sharing a performance. There is so much energy at the end of a performance and the enthusiasm is certainly contagious, as it spreads among each audience member.
The first piece was titled “Thread.” The backdrop showed images of trees – springtime at first, but then the trees took on a spooky quality and eventually became the image of two large eyes. My first impression was one that the dancers seemed possessed. Their movements seemed to be slow and not under their own control. Some movements were geometric and reminded me of our discussion in Art History about geometric shapes inferring abstraction. The backdrop also changed color periodically, reflecting the mood of the dancing and the tone of the music. I loved the energy that the trumpet added. Between periods of shaky movements, the dancers displayed delicate grace and more traditional form. There was also a door that separated the stage into two parts (also separated by a screen). The screen invited questions and thoughts about separation between the dancers – how are the dancers on each side of the screen different? At first, the dancers began moving by themselves independently, but later in the performance, men danced in pairs with women, and the dancers began to seem more interconnected. (There was something captivating about how the dancers began separately, individually carrying out the same movements together in sync with each other.) There was also the idea of control present – sometimes between the dancers and other times as if the dancers were being controlled by something else – almost evoking the power of the music as a vehicle to exert control over the dancers. The first performance was interesting, intriguing, and beautiful.
By contrast, the third performance, “Double Evil” was interesting for very different reasons. “Double Evil” was captivating because of the irresistible energy of the music and movements. This piece featured more traditional costumes of short puffy tutus in bright colors. This piece received a standing ovation from much of the entire Opera House. Standing among such enthusiastic audience members is an incredible experience. This excited, contagious phenomenon does not end with ballet. In fact, it was the same excitement that consumes the crowd at an ice hockey game after your team has just scored – everyone in the venue is consumed by the energy of the performance. The excitement does not even stop there, with ice hockey, but seems to persist through all kinds of activities that are shared by a large number of people. Such an experience is easy to find, when the crowd is as excited as they are at the midnight showing of a Harry Potter film on opening night, where every theatre at the Metreon is full at least an hour before the starting time of the movie, with screaming, enthusiastic fans dressed head to toe in costume, who, during the movie premiere, share applause and cheering (and the occasional booing at Malfoy). This phenomenon hardly stops there. Since I’ve already mentioned Harry Potter I might as well add that I felt the same way devouring the seventh book the day it was released, and knowing that millions of fans around the world were turning the same pages and reading over the same words, making the experience incredibly powerful.
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