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Fort Mason Center for the Arts
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SF Dance Works' 2018 Program worth the journey

by Joanna G. Harris
June 11, 2018
Fort Mason Center for the Arts
38 Fort Mason
San Francisco, CA 94123
(415) 441-3400
Joanna G. Harris Author, Beyond Isadora: Bay Area Dancing, 1916-1965. Regent Press, Berkeley, CA, 2009. Contributor to reviews on culturevulture.net
Except for the process of getting there on a fine Sunday afternoon, when the Food Fair is on, Fort Mason is lively with many other events. Getting to the Cowell Theater presents a challenging, windy walk and there is no unpaid parking. But it is always a pleasure to see dance events at the theater. Perhaps some good planners with rethink the use of Fort Mason so that theater is the centerpiece.

SF Dance Works' 2018 program was a fine rewarding event worth getting to. For Season 3, four works were presented, each by a different choreographer. Nacho Duato is the senior choreographer. His work, “Jardi Tancat,” created for the Nederlands Dans Theater in 1983, is sourced from Catalonia folk tales, expressing the hardships of poor Catalonian farmers. The six dancers, in ensemble and duets, executed the seamless lyricism of the music, composed and sung by Maria del Mar Bonet. “Jardi Tancat” is marvelously performed. Newly appointed associate director, Danielle Rowe was outstanding as a senior dancer.

Rowe also choreographed the world premiere work on the program, “The Old Child.” In a series of vignettes, the dancers appeared dancing duets which apparently portrayed remembrances of life’s stages. A constant figure (Rowe herself?), placed downstage right, rises at each episode, almost as if calling the next event. In order of appearance the dancers are Britt Juleen, Anne Zivolich-Adams and Garrett Anderson, Dana Genshaft and Katerina Eng, Nicholas Korkos, and Laura O’Malley and Brett Conway. It is a charming work, but for this reviewer, it needs more clarification and sometimes amplification. The score is by Alton San Giovanni, performed by instrumentalist David Knight.
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