Two nationally prominent troupes are giving dance enthusiasts a reason to cross the bridge this spring
Berkeley will be a focal point for dance in April when two nationally prominent troupes, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Joffrey Ballet, will resume their residencies and stage multiple premieres at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Hall.
“Both residencies came about as the result of long-term relationships between Cal Performances and these two pinnacle companies of dance in the United States, which are truly international companies,” said Cal Performances Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen. “The fact they are in adjacent weeks is just good luck; we like to say in artistic administration that you claim all great coincidences as good planning.” From April 7-12, Cal Performances will host AAADT’s four programs that include seven premieres: the Bay Area debuts of Medhi Walerski’s “Blink of an Eye,” Jamar Roberts’ “Song of the Anchorite,” Matthew Neenan’s “Difference Between,” Maija García’s “Jazz Island,” Frederick Earl Mosley’s “Embrace,” and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Samantha Figgins and Chalvar Monteiro’s “The Holy Blues”; and the Bay Area premiere of a new production of Judith Jamison’s “A Case of You.” The company will also present revivals of founder Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” and Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace.” Cal Performances rolls out the red carpet on April 17 for its annual gala and through April 19 for the Joffrey Ballet and West Coast premiere of Alexander Ekman’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Ekman’s opus, a co-commission with the Royal Swedish Ballet, was inspired not by Shakespeare but by a traditional Scandinavian summer solstice. The work includes an original score by Mikael Karlsson and vocals by the Swedish indie rock sensation Anna von Hausswolff. Cal Performances and AAADT have a relationship that dates back to 1968, 10 years after the company’s founding by the groundbreaking Black choreographer Alvin Ailey in New York. Ailey established AAADT and its associated dance school as incubators for nurturing Black artists and to celebrate their experiences in dance. “This is one of the flagship companies of the United States that represents an extraordinary variety of styles, from vernacular dance to classical dance,” Geffen said. “What’s particularly interesting about this company is that they perform more often on the stage at Cal Performances than they have on any other stage outside of their home in New York City.” Roberts and Figgins are two examples of choreographers who were once AAADT company dancers and whose works will be presented at Cal Performances, a pattern Geffen said he’s seen over several seasons. “It's pretty rare that an audience gets the opportunity to experience the entire creative lifecycle of an artist — they can see someone from their first season dancing with the company through, perhaps, their last season of creating new work,” he said. “So there's a particularly close relationship between the audience and this company. The Bay Area audience has had to feel that they know the members of this company as closely as they would any company that was resident in the Bay Area.” Ex // Top Stories SF joins West Coast book club with Takei graphic novel The San Francisco Public Library has teamed up with dozens of libraries in three states for One Coast, One Book Billionaire-tax author pushing for bigger, broader levy on the ultrawealthy UC Berkeley professor Brian Galle recently unveiled plan for increase at the federal level SF Symphony season to center Bay Area stars SF Symphony will once again feature a suite of guest conductors as it searches for a music director Stanford Makishi is a former dancer with Trisha Brown and is the vice president and artistic director for dance at New York’s City Center. He is also very familiar with AAADT, which has appeared at City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival 12 times — more than any other company in the festival’s 23-year history — and stresses the importance of AAADT in the landscape of American dance. “Ailey did not prioritize using his company as a single-choreographer vehicle for promoting his own work exclusively; he welcomed other artists to create work on his dancers, and this model of the modern repertory dance company is one of the key reasons it has continued to flourish to this day,” Makishi said. “Bringing new work into the company's repertoire has always been part of its ethos, and this has allowed the company to remain vital and relevant long after its founder's passing.” Makishi is impressed by the broad range of work AAADT will share with Bay Area audiences, with the programs representing stylistic variety that might seem impossible for a single group of dancers to switch gears from one piece to the next. “The gifted artists who make up the company are chameleons who can inhabit the different worlds of each piece comfortably and beautifully, all while maintaining their individuality,” he said. The Joffrey Ballet started making summertime pilgrimages to Cal Performances in the 1970s under its founder Robert Joffrey, and the Chicago troupe has been returning there every other year under their residency that began in 2007. The company also has personal ties with the Bay Area through Artistic Director Ashley Wheater, who was a principal dancer from 1989 to 1996 with the San Francisco Ballet. In recognition of Wheater’s exceptional contributions and impact on the performing arts, Cal Performances will present him with its Award of Distinction in the Performing Arts during its gala celebration. “Ashley’s performing career has informed his taste as a curator, and performing at that exceptionally high level that he did for so many years, he's able to ensure that a company of which he is artistic director now meets that same standard every day,” Geffen said. “I'm always struck about the nuances he understands about both performers and creators — he is as fluid in his descriptions of the music as he is of dance — this sort of curiosity for the entire spectrum of the artistic world is what has made him so successful.” Makishi calls the Joffrey Ballet — from 1966 to 1977 the resident company at City Center — the daredevil of the ballet world for its repertoire that includes works choreographed to rock music. He also notes that the company under Wheater has welcomed international choreographers, some with a definite edge such as Ekman. “Anything I've seen of his has made me wonder how his mind works and prompted a ‘how-did-someone-ever-think-of-that?’ reaction, and I would say the same about the movement that he creates, which can be athletic, conventionally technical, pedestrian, and physically wild,” he said. “I’m a fan because I occasionally like to be overwhelmed by what I am watching, and that is my experience watching an Alexander Ekman ballet.”
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