San Francisco Ballet

2017 SFB Program 07 Notes

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NEW THATCHER PRODUCTION CREDITS Music by Michael Nyman: "Queen of the Night" and "An Eye For Optical Theory" from The Draughtsman's Contract, "Prawn-Watching" from A Zed and Two Noughts, "A Wild and Distant Shore", "Lost and Found", and "The Heart Asks Pleasure First/ The Promise" from The Piano and "Wheelbarrow Walk" from Drowning by Numbers. Music used by arrangement with G. Schirmer, sole agent for Chester Music, publisher and copyright owner. Costumes constructed by S-Curve Apparel & Design, San Francisco, California. NEW THATCHER CONTINUED of community, whether it's positive or negative, and how it influences us," he says. "I've been exploring how we interact with society and how society can interact with us. We can be in a room full of people and still feel absolutely alone." In his new work, he has created a complex internal structure in which dancers group and regroup in constantly shifting numbers. At times a single dancer comes into focus, but it's not long before he or she is reabsorbed into the group. This shifting ensemble fits the theme of community, but it's also Thatcher's preference in terms of ballet structure. Though he acknowledges the value of "having a whole journey for one person within a ballet," he says, an ensemble ballet is "more exciting to watch, for me, and that's how I enjoy creating." The ballet opens with a couple in conflict. In rehearsals Thatcher tells Principal Dancers Vanessa Zahorian and Joseph Walsh that the first moments of their duet "should feel like a face-off at an old abandoned warehouse." Later he explains that they're like "those people who enjoy confrontation. In the beginning, we're not sure if they're having fun. It's like when you have chemistry with someone who isn't really good for you; there's a toxicity there, but there's pleasure in that. I wanted that kind of dynamic." From this confrontation, the ballet moves through expressions of sadness and rejection to its turning point, a duet created on Principal Dancers Dores André and Carlo Di Lanno. These two, who seem to be in love but aren't quite connecting, are the opposite of the combative couple, Thatcher says. They have chemistry, "but for some reason they can't realize it in the context of the group. Maybe they aren't supposed to be together. Maybe there's something preventing them from being together." Even if they don't remain a couple (a possibility Thatcher leaves open-ended), their struggle to accept love opens the door to a happier state within this small community. At this point in the ballet, Thatcher asks his dancers to be "simple and human." Conflict and isolation give way to empathetic hugs, a serene and imaginative moment of togetherness inspired by (of all things) a Rolodex, some comic relief, and a pervasive feeling of acceptance. In creating the ballet's structure, Thatcher works instinctively, then analyzes what he's created. "I listen to my intuition and then question why I felt that." The questioning is necessary "so I can articulate [what I've done] to myself and to my dancers, so they get the right picture," he says. "I have to go by feeling first; if I over-intellectualize the reasoning behind things first, it never works." The movement he has created both emphasizes and tests the community theme. Throughout the ballet, we see fluidity and continuity, weighted movements, supported falls, gentle repositionings, flocking passages of unison steps, and times when members of the group who seem to need an emotional boost are given a physical one. There's no shying away from emotion here — Thatcher wants heart in his movement, and softness; he wants the torso to flex and extend as much as an arm or leg. The goal is to "bring some humanity into it," he says. "I'm fascinated by dynamics in movement that my generation has developed, or the one before us, like with hip-hop and a way of moving that articulates the four points of the shoulders and the hips. It's expressive. Even just softening here" — he collapses his chest — "means so much." Threaded throughout are movement motifs that reinforce the theme. An arm snakes, its movement completed by the hand flipping 180 degrees; both hands slide across the torso on diagonals, one up to the heart, one down to the hip. There's rocking, reaching, and, most important, embracing. In developing motifs, Thatcher says he sees "theme sensations, if that makes sense. I try to find steps that have the same sensations for the dancers." So when what he calls "theme arms" might extend horizontally in front of the body in one bit of choreography, they retain that shape and quality when they move overhead. From 2014 to 2015, Thatcher spent a year in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative under the mentorship of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, whose neoclassical ballets often emphasize our bonds as human beings. That experience, along with the work he's done in the past few years, has aided Thatcher's development as a dancemaker. Of particular note to Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson is a more sophisticated way of "moving groups of dancers around, the complexity of the movement's structure," he says. "I'm glad to see how he's growing. He's very talented, and I have big hopes for him." Thatcher thinks it's too soon to tell what effect spending a year under Ratmansky's guidance has had on his development as an artist. But he does know this about his choreographic process: "A huge influence is the dancers — huge, huge, huge," he says. "They really shape what [the ballet] is going to be. It's really humbling." 07 Left: Maria Kochetkova in Tomasson's Trio // © Erik Tomasson Right: San Francisco Ballet rehearses Thatcher's 2017 new work // © Erik Tomasson 78 SAN FRANCISCO BALLET 2017 SEASON GUIDE

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