Starting with its very first season, SFDanceworks was a brilliant success. Founder James Sofranko, who was at the time a soloist at San Francisco Ballet, wanted to present the past, present, and future of contemporary dance—and was fortunate to have a group of phenomenal dancers and support teams who could turn it into a reality.
Now in its ninth season, the company’s current artistic director Dana Genshaft has curated a thoughtful season-opening program (November 4-7, ZSpace, SF) that includes three solos by Merce Cunningham, two premieres—one by Germaine Spivey and the other by Brett Conway—plus the return of a work from last year by Yue Yin.
Cunningham is one of the world’s greatest choreographers, ever. His work spanned 70-plus years and he was working up until he died in 2009 at age 90. (This writer feels grateful to have seen him and his company perform from 1966 until his demise.)
Originally Joseph Walsh, principal dancer at SF Ballet, was to dance the season opener’s three solos, but in the middle of the rehearsal period had to bow out. Silas Riener, who was teaching them to him, was invited to do them instead.
Riener joined the Cunningham company in 2007, a year after graduating from Princeton. In an interview with 48hills, Riener spoke both about the three pieces and about working with Merce in his last years. “Two of these solos are not ones that I ever got a chance to perform, so that felt enticing. I was very fortunate to get to work with Merce, and I was very young at the time.
“I’m curious and interested because it’s a different approach from my young, high octane one,” Riener said.
“Deciphering those solos has always been a special task because Merce was so unique in his approach that it’s always been a challenge to embody those particular solos,” he continued. “All them were [danced] by Foofwa d’Imobilité, and all of them were made at different times in his career with the company. The earliest one is from a piece called ‘Enter,’ which was in 1992; the next one is ‘Ocean’ from 1994; and the last one is a piece called ‘Scenario’ from 1997.”
When asked if toward the end of his life, especially when he wasn’t able to walk or move much anymore, Merce had any sense of frustration that he couldn’t work any longer, Riener replied, “I never experienced that from him. Rather than frustration, he was always trying to find a way forward. The way that he was making movement with us at the end was different.
“From his wheelchair, he would give us verbal instructions, and then maybe he would have some sort of hand gesture that would illustrate the kind of quality he was looking for, but that was certainly adequate to communicate a lot of different wavelengths of movement information. I always felt he just was finding a new way. They express or delineate a gradual evolution. This is a time period when Merce was first starting to work with the computer program that he used in creating movement, and then later you can see how that era of his choreography feels more wholly, or physically or bodily absorbed by the dancers.
“But you also see his interest in pushing Foofwa further and further and that is what I see in these three solos. There is so much actually in Merce’s work that I’ve always felt is very personal to the dancer who is doing it, and the relationship between Merce and that dancer. That there’s something that you’re both trying to collaborate to figure out.”
Jermaine Spivey has danced with Ballet Gulbenkian, Cullberg Ballet, and is a longtime member of Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot. He has also guested with The Forsythe Company and Hofesh Shechter Company. Commissions from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nederlands Dans Theater, L.A. Dance Project, Sacramento Ballet and Rambert 2 are part of his choreographic achievements.
With a background of such a varied array of styles, it should come as no surprise that the rehearsals for his latest work for SFDanceworks, a quintet, were completely fascinating to watch. They almost felt like the spectator could be sucked into another galaxy.
Spivey warms the dancers up with a series of vocal exercises that become more and more complex, and gradually begin to involve more and more parts of the body. It’s clear that he wants the dancers to utilize their entire beings in every movement. He constantly seeks slightly different variations of the rhythmic patterns. Getting to see the final results in the performance will be definitely worth the wait.
The other premiere on the program is by Brett Conway, who joined the Alonzo King LINES Ballet at age 18, went on to dance with Nederlands Dans Theater, and then returned to San Francisco. Besides teaching ballet at several studios, he was co-artistic director of SFDanceworks from 2019 to 2021 and choreographed his first work for the company. Last summer he did the choreography for the Merola Opera Program’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos.
“When I put together the trio,” explains Conway, “I was playing with the aspects about one’s own self or relationships with other people, and how over time things change, things grow, and deciding whether they grow together, do they go separate ways, do they grow apart?
“Ultimately it ends with a deeper understanding for one another. And I want to create something that’s fun for them too,” Conway continues.
“I’m also intentional about what I’m creating in order to bring balance and contrast to what else is being offered on the program,” he says. “My process is going to be way different from the others. But I think that’s the beauty of a repertoire company. How do you go from one choreographer’s way of working and what they’re drawing out of you, and then go into another choreographer’s rehearsal, and then go on stage, and then portray a different story or a different way of moving, or a totally different approach? I think my experience at NDT really taught me that the value of how to adapt.”
SFDanceworks is also bringing back Yue Yin’s A Measurable Existence, which was shown last season. This time around, the dance designed for two men will alternate casts, with one version employing two women. Nat Wilson, who staged the piece last year, will return, in addition to taking on a role in Jermaine Spivey’s premiere.
SFDANCEWORKS SEASON NINE runs November 4-7. ZSpace, SF. More info and tickets here.
