Michael Smuin was a master at building dependable, durable, crowd-pleasing machines. Perhaps the ultimate proof of this can be seen now through Dec. 24 in the online stream of Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s “The Christmas Ballet.”
Created in 1995, a year after Smuin founded the San Francisco dance company, this spectacle was designed to sate all tastes (though you’re more likely to love it if you lean toward a Rockettes-style Broadway baby aesthetic). There’s a “Classical Christmas” opening half dressed in white and set to music including Bach’s “Magnificat,” and a “Cool Christmas” second half dressed in red and set to pop ditties such as “Santa Baby” and “Christmas in New Orleans.”
It was also designed to keep loyal fans coming back for favorite numbers, while freshening interest by swapping out a song or two for bits of new choreography every year. This pandemic season, that adaptability makes room for additions Smuin would never have foreseen: Three slates of premieres and debut performances, danced by company members who worked in pods and recorded their COVID-era contributions, following safety protocols, in Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s San Francisco studios last month.
The results, viewed on opening night Friday, Dec. 11, featuring premieres from Pod C, are a heartening testament to resilience.
All pod dancers perform masked, but even so, Brennan Wall and Ricardo Dyer manage to interact with ease and playful tenderness in Smuin’s rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”; Tessa Barbour taps so crisply to “Bells of Dublin” that you forget you can’t see her smile; and Mengjun Chen (the company’s best male dancer, with taffy stretch in his thighs and a high jump) somehow seemed as loose as the slide in Lou Rawls’ voice as he dances “Drummer Boy.”
Amy London is clearly doing an undiminished fine job as the company’s ballet master, even working over video and in small groups during the pandemic. Smuin dancers tend not to move big and bendy; instead, there’s a lovely whole-body integration that’s especially beautiful in the harmony of head and shoulders. That’s shown off nicely in three classical premieres, the most substantive of which is Barbour’s treatment of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” as rendered by the 101 Strings Orchestra. Barbour evidences a strong bigger-picture sense of composition and plays richly with canon and counterpoint.
For contrast and a hair-slinging closer, the pod portion finished with Ben Needham-Wood’s “Thank God It’s Christmas,” to a recording by Queen. It showcases swiveling hips, spinal rolls and lines that peel out with a touch of Busby Berkeley panache.
But it’s Barbour’s choreography that stands out in the archival portion of this stream, too, which splices together performances from the past four years. Smuin, who died in 2007, was a showman omnivore with a flair for outre props. (Witness the 42-foot feather boa that features in his setting of “Santa Baby,” given Marilyn Monroe-esque spunk by Terez Dean Orr.) Barbour’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” from last year, doesn’t stint on the time-honored accoutrements, with Barbour and Maggie Carey tap-dancing up and down little individual staircases.
The company’s current artistic director, Celia Fushille, opens the virtual rendition of “The Christmas Ballet” with a personal welcome that notes the silver lining of seeing retired Smuin dancers, such as Erin Yarbrough-Powell, in the archival footage. Fushille is right about this; Yarbrough-Powell is stunning in Amy Seiwert’s “Noel Nouvelet,” a study in spiraling sculptural elegance. That’s the “Classical Christmas,” of course.
If you’ve got a weakness for slapstick, wait for “Christmas Tree Rock,” Rex Wheeler’s update from 2017 that stars a naughty Christmas tree that wouldn’t mind getting fresh with a certain partygoer. Smuin himself would be laughing — and he would most certainly be proud of Fushille and the dancers’ perseverance.
“The Christmas Ballet”: Smuin Contemporary Ballet. Available to stream through Dec. 24. $49-$139. www.smuinballet.org
The Link LonkDecember 13, 2020 at 11:41AM
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/dance/review-smuins-annual-christmas-ballet-goes-virtual-with-fresh-twists-on-tradition
Review: Smuin’s annual ‘Christmas Ballet’ goes virtual, with fresh twists on tradition - SF Chronicle Datebook
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