Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents the LINES Ballet 2016 Spring Season, featuring a reprise of Shostakovich and the World Premiere of Sand, with accompaniment by Charles Lloyd & Jason Moran
2016-04-21
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater
701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-3138 USA
8:00 PM, Thursday, April 21, 2016

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[8:07 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [8:08 PM] String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960): movement 2: Allegro molto; danced by the corps
2. [8:11 PM] String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68 (1944): movement 2: Recitative and Romance: Adagio; danced by the corps
3. [8:23 PM] String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73 (1944): movement 4: Adagio; danced by Babatunji, Adji Cissoko, Brett Conway, Courtney Henry, and Michael Montgomery
4. [8:27 PM] String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp major, Op. 108 (1960): movement 2: Lento; danced by Yuja Kim & Brett Conway
5. [8:33 PM] String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960): movement 4: Largo; danced by the corps
   [set ends 8:40 PM]

• David Finn: lighting design;
• G. Chris Griffin: lighting;
• Alonzo King: choreographer;
• Joan Raymond: costume construction;
• Robert Rosenwasser: costume and set design;
• Dmitri Shostakovich: composer;
• musical recording/performers not identified.

[9:04 PM lights down, waiting]

1. [9:04 PM] Hagar's Lullaby (cl alto solo); danced by the corps
2. [9:11 PM] Sand (jm solo); danced by Adji Cissoko & Jeffrey Van Sciver
3. [9:15 PM] We Hum; danced by Babatunji, Rob Beresford, and Shuaib Elhassan
4. [9:19 PM] Dreams; danced by the corps
5. [9:27 PM] 13-Letters; danced by the corps
6. [9:33 PM] Sand Rhythms; danced by Madeline DeVries with the corps
7. [9:37 PM] We Move (Parts 1 and 2); danced by the corps
8. [9:45 PM] We Hum (Outro); danced by Babatunji & Laura O'Malley with the corps
   [set ends 9:47 PM; bows and applause for a few minutes, then all off]

• Christopher Haas: set design;
• Alonzo King: choreographer;
• Axel Morgenthaler: lighting design;
• Joan Raymond: costume construction;
• Robert Rosenwasser: costume design.

• Charles Lloyd: alto saxophone (s2t01), tenor saxophone;
• Jason Moran: piano.

• Babatunji
• Robb Beresford
• Adji Cissoko
• Brett Conway
• Madeline DeVries
• Shuaib Elhassan
• Courtney Henry
• Yujin Kim
• Michael Montgomery
• Laura O'Malley
• Jeffrey Van Sciver
• Kara Wilkes

First set tonight was darn good, but another ballet set to the music of Shostakovich String Quartets? My guess is that the two takes (xref) were conceptually similar but practically different. Without video, it's hard for me to compare the dances to each other, but the earlier show definitely earns an extra nod for employing a live string quartet instead of relying on pre-recorded accompaniment. Nonetheless, I found Alonzo's realization of the pieces as a dance work to be quite engaging – Rand0m says “Go see it, you'll be glad you made the effort!”

And after a brief set break, Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran treated us to a really nice set of spacey jazz accompanied by some fine modern ballet. I would have been happier with a longer set of live tunes, but my guess is that the dancer's stamina is one of the more important constraints. I can live with that! In most instances an amuse-bouche is far better than a glutton's course!

A bunch of additional commentary from the creators of Sand has been posted on the LINES blog – it's a good read! And that page leads to more goodies: a post-show Q&A session with Alonzo, Charles and Jason (from 4/24/16), video from a Sand rehearsal, and more…

Plenty of other reviewers have posted their thoughts about the show; a few that I've found are listed below.

• Randy McMullen, writing for the Mercury News Arts Scene
• Liam Passmore, writing for 7x7
• Toba Singer, writing for Culture Vulture
• Allan Ulrich, writing for SFGate

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!