NEWS
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Feb 28, 2014
Program 3 at San Francisco Ballet: Heartaches by the Number
Huffington Post
The second production, Ghosts, received its world premiere at SF Ballet in 2010. The collaborative work by composer C.F. Kip Winger and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is a compelling take on one of the classical world's most entrancing advantages -- dancing with the dead.
Wheeldon's phantoms move about in a space that is dominated by a large piece of twisted wreckage that hovers above them stage right. Whatever it is to them, however we try to interpret its inclusion -- the indeterminate gnarled object occasionally turns and rolls. Is it in a state of perpetual free-fall Perhaps this is the site of a sudden disaster, where collected spirits are consigned to a never-ending loop of enigma and bewilderment. Winger's first movement, Misterioso, includes a lilting phrase for solo violin that ends abruptly, drifting off-pitch into nothingness. During the second movement, Largamente, the sound of a piano glimmers like rain through the broad strokes and moody tones of the string section. Set as a pas de deux and danced by Maria Kochetkova and Vitor Luiz, Wheeldon intertwines something like sentiment with tension and resistance, where suggestions of knowing are countered by detachment. The third movement, Adagio, plays with melancholy, nostalgia and interrupted expectation.
By Sean Martinfield
San Francisco cultural critic, Feb 28, 2014
Review Photo, Erik Tomasson
