Feature Stories

Demanding Repertory, Versatile Dancers

Ballet companies today regularly step out of the classical and into the contemporary realm, and nowhere more so than at San Francisco Ballet. The wide range of works the Company performs is one of its biggest assets, and the dancers are expected to be stylistically versatile.

Since 1989 Ballet Master and Assistant to the Artistic Director Ashley Wheater has watched the Company develop and change as a result of its repertory, including the dozens of new ballets that have been created on its dancers. “Having a diverse repertory has challenged the dancers to be much stronger and more versatile. It’s opened their minds to other ways of doing things,” says Wheater, also a former principal dancer with the Ballet. “Working with so many people, with so many different personalities, the dancers become open-minded about what they’re doing—that in itself is very important.”

It’s not easy to go from one style and pace of choreography to another during a day of rehearsals, let alone a performance. Last spring the dancers’ adaptability was put to the test. Rather than taking their usual six-week hiatus, San Francisco Ballet finished the 2005 Repertory Season and went straight into a uniquely challenging rehearsal period to learn three new works for their summer engagement in Paris.

The three ballets, Christopher Wheeldon’s Quaternary (program 2), Paul Taylor’s Spring Rounds (program 3), and Lar Lubovitch’s Elemental Brubeck (program 8), run the gamut in terms of both style and creative process. Many dancers were cast in two of the ballets, but a few of them, including Principal Dancer Katita Waldo and Corps de Ballet member Garrett Anderson, learned roles in all three. For both dancers, the experience was simultaneously exhausting and thrilling.

Switching stylistic gears is as difficult mentally as it is physically, and there’s no separating the two. Mind and body work together, and never more so than when the demands placed on both are great. “It can be hard physically because each of [the choreographers] makes unique demands on the body,” says Anderson. “They all have a very specific aesthetic, so you have to reprogram yourself. Some of them want you to drop your weight and have loose arms; in another piece you have to be really lifted and exact.” Adding to the physical burden, he says, is the repetition inherent in the process of creating a ballet. “Choreographers need to see a ballet when they’re revising it, so we run through a work many times,” says Anderson.

Waldo, who has been with the Company for 19 years, can’t remember ever pushing herself as hard as she did in learning these three ballets. “All three choreographers are very different,” she says. “Patrick Corbin [who set Spring Rounds] knew exactly what he wanted. The movement is contemporary but easygoing. “It’s a whole different story with Lar. Once you get Lar’s movement it’s comfortable, but this piece is pretty intense,” Waldo continues. “You never stop moving, and it was really hard the first few times we tried to run it. I’d go home and I couldn’t move! But it’s a good kind of pain—a soreness—in that it isn’t injury.” Extreme differences in movement styles place new demands on the body, creating more potential for muscle soreness.

When asked to compare the stylistic differences between Wheeldon and Lubovitch, Anderson says, “Wheeldon’s is contemporary but has more of a balletic basis to it, so there’s a bit more ballet technique. He’ll ask you to do different things with your body than you’ll have to do in ballet class, but I feel like the way I’m working in his piece, you have to have a real ballet warm-up. He’s very classical.

“With Lubovitch you have to get into the ground and loosen your arms and sort of f low,” continues Anderson. “He’s less concerned with how rotated you are, how [extended] your foot is—he’s more interested in the intention and the swaying quality, the circular patterns. Lar told me I was over-dancing some parts; he wanted me to relax and just let it happen. While Wheeldon will say, ‘Push this line more.’”

Although changing gears from one rehearsal to another is difficult, there can be surprising overlaps. “I found that Lar’s work helped me do Christopher’s,” says Waldo. “Lar is very modern and grounded, and in order to do what Christopher asks of me, I need to be very grounded. That’s not something that comes easily to me. So it helps me to do Lar’s work and then go into Christopher’s work, because even though I have to put pointe shoes on [for Quaternary], I have to be very close to the ground and heavy.”

Besides adapting to different movement styles, dancers also have to accommodate each choreographer’s personality traits and rehearsal methods. Anderson had been through the creative process with Wheeldon before Quaternary, so he knew what to expect. “He works really quickly. You’ve got to figure it out; you’ve got to know it and look confident right away. He doesn’t like hesitant dancing—even if it’s a new movement you’ve never done before, he wants to see it done like you believe in it. You have to be fresh mentally.”

Though repetition can make rehearsals physically demanding, the challenge mentally is to keep up with the constantly evolving choreography. “It’s exhausting because you’re remembering so much material and there are a lot of changes,” explains Anderson. “You have to review [the ballet] in your head, especially when so many choreographers are here at the same time.” In the final days before the Company left for Paris, the choreographers were working against the clock to make last-minute changes. “You have to remember what the most recent version of the section is, and you have to mark through it or go through it in your head so you don’t get to that spot and have five versions in your head. That’s a hard thing,” Anderson laughs.

All those changes—a natural part of a ballet’s evolution from a whisper of an idea to a multifaceted work of art—can be stimulating. “Each person is doing something that’s totally individual, and it’s amazing to be pulled in different directions,” says Anderson. He adds that the experience is even more exciting when the dancers have a work created on them, rather than rehearsing an existing ballet. “You get so much involvement, because [choreographers are] looking at you and having you try [different steps]. So the movement is a product of your involvement. You’re part of the process, so it’s more creative and satisfying.”

Being ready to work well in rehearsal takes preparation, and for Anderson, the key is relaxation. “The more I relax, the better I do. When you hype yourself up, your body doesn’t respond as well; you tend to do what would come naturally. So I just try to relax and not freak myself out. It’s easier in rehearsal than it is onstage.”

Doing what comes naturally to these classically trained dancers may not be what is needed for contemporary works, and Anderson finds that warming up within the idiom of the piece is the secret to making the transition. It’s not enough to think about what your body will be doing; actually moving within that vocabulary, telling the muscles which language to speak, is critical. “Patrick Corbin would give us some Taylor exercises before rehearsals, to practice the movement and get into the style, so I do that on my own,” Anderson says. “I get my body moving in that way, not specifically the choreography but just moving around the studio before rehearsal.”

The Company’s repertory is a carefully thought-out compilation that entertains, educates, and challenges audiences as well as dancers. Ashley Wheater quotes Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson when he says, “You’re only as good as what you dance.” With a repertory that pulls from ballet’s centuries-long history and pushes the art form with innovative choreographers, San Francisco Ballet is in a class of its own.

—Cheryl Ossola