San Francisco Ballet

FRAGILE VESSELS PRODUCTION CREDITS Music: Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninov, Costumes constructed by Žolna šport, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Scenic construction and painting by San Francisco Ballet Carpentry and Scenic Departments. FRAGILE VESSELS CONTINUED piece was "very contemporary," Tomasson says. "Another was neoclassical dancing that moved beautifully, very musical. I thought it would be wonderful to have him do something for us." At SF Ballet, Bubeníček wanted to take risks. "I wanted to make something demanding," he says. "I had strong dancers; this is what I want to do for them — use their ability." Once he started choreographing, he found that he wanted "to make them move even more and enhance the classical vocabulary." He says he likes to be "very musical, but I also think that the dance and the music [are] in the same level. I'm not trying to always follow the music; sometimes the choreography is leading the music, so there's this dynamic as well." According to Music Director and Principal Conductor Martin West, the Rachmaninov concerto gives Bubeníček plenty to work with. "It's a great piece," West says, "a true concerto in the sense that the orchestra and piano have big voices. Everybody loves playing Rachmaninov. He reminds me of Gershwin in that he was a completely unique voice." His music is "so deep, it's so clever, it's so unique — like Gershwin, all those melodies he wrote. You think, 'Oh, anybody could do that.' No, they couldn't. He was a genius, and so was Rachmaninov." Rachmaninov's big voice demands movement that equals it. "He's a Russian composer, so I want Bolshoi [movement]; that means huge, big," Bubeníček tells the dancers, demonstrating a downward sweep of his arms that seems to use every muscle. "You have to lick the floor." Working with Principal Dancer Dores André and Soloist Francisco Mungamba in a pas de deux, he says, "The body can move in so many ways. I want to see three-dimensional bodies, not two-dimensional." His choreography, filled with counterbalances, unconventional lifts, and imaginative partnering, unfolds in a complex structure peppered with geometric formations. Describing Bubeníček's movement quality as full would be an understatement; it is lush, fluid, lugubrious — as the choreographer puts it, juicy. "I like to see the body moving as it is built, not to give it any limitations," he says. "His movement is his own," Tomasson says. "It's very much based in the classical idiom, and both brothers were exceptionally good dancers. They're also good partners, and both of them are very strong. I think that comes into the choreography." SF Ballet dancers "learned a different take on partnering or movement. Bubeníček's style is not like anybody else's." Fragile Vessels has three themes, most visible in the second movement pas de trois but present throughout: love, separation, and forgiveness. Working from a concept, not from specific movement ideas, is a skill he had to develop, Bubeníček says. "When I was a young choreographer I was more shy, so I would prepare every step." But, he discovered, the movement he created on himself didn't necessarily fit the dancers. "I don't prepare any steps anymore; I prefer to work with people, to be creative," he says. "Also I think the dancers feel better when it's something made on them, and they can inspire me as well." When Fragile Vessels begins, a chaotic rush of movement quickly becomes ordered. Bubeníček knows how to pace a ballet, allowing dense passages of embellished movement to transition into quiet moments. The corps de ballet dances many of the same steps as the principal dancers, echoing and building on them. There's depth in the relationships too — a pas de deux for Principal Dancers Sofiane Sylve and Joseph Walsh involves romance but also a sense of discovery, as if they're sharing a new experience. It's an equal partnership, not a man presenting a woman in the traditional classical way. Many moments reveal an emphasis on human dynamics and communication; often the dancers move in response to someone else. For example, in a pas de deux for André and Soloist Wei Wang, he pushes her flexed leg into extension, as if to show how intimately they are connected. Bubeníček often finds inspiration in fine art, so look closely — you might see poses that reference Auguste Rodin's The Thinker and 18th-century Italian sculptor Antonio Canova's Orfeo ed Euridice. For Bubeníček, inspiration also comes from the not-so-distant past, and from people you might not expect, like 1920s supermodel Audrey Munson. If you've ever admired the statue of a woman that towers above San Francisco's Union Square or stands in many places in New York City (including atop Grand Central Station), "a kind of heroic woman, [with a] beautiful Greek face," Bubeníček says, you've seen Audrey Munson. Fleetingly, Sylve and Walsh imitate the pose she struck in modeling for Adolph Alexander Weinman's sculpture Descending Night. Interesting as these nods to art are, they're not essential to the viewing experience. More important, Bubeníček says, is for audiences to decide for themselves what story is being told, and for dancers to create magic with this ballet, to "give it soul," he says. As Otto explains to André, Walsh, and Wang about a point when they run downstage in a triangle formation, "You're not human anymore; you're something bigger, the world." Sometimes dancers "just want to dance the best," Jiří Bubeníček says, and we viewers come to the theater expecting top-notch technique. "Somehow we forget what it is about — the feeling and the love." He puts his hand over his heart. In order for dance to become art, he says, "it should always come first from here." 01 Left: Dores André and Francisco Mungamba rehearse Bubeníček's Fragile Vessels // © Erik Tomasson Right: Dores André and Joseph Walsh in Peck's In the Countenance of Kings // © Erik Tomasson 54 SAN FRANCISCO BALLET 2017 SEASON GUIDE

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