Principal Dancer Sarah Van Patten rehearsing John Neumeier's The Little Mermaid which premieres on March 20. (© Erik Tomasson)

We have almost finished the Tibetan section of our dance and are learning different formations for the Mongolian  horse dance. Each rehearsal we also try some new Bhangra moves and it’s fun to see the students simultaneously becoming more refined and adventurous in their movements.

I am so pleased that the dancers are gaining strength and confidence as we practice. Cybastian is able to remain focused the entire time.  Sergio knows not only his steps and spacing, but also those of  his fellow classmates and has been helpful to catch other students up.  Paul has great rhythm for our first triplet step. Fannie is showing more of herself as a strong dancer.  Erica, Chao, and Lizette are great leaders by being positive examples of how to listen and focus.

For many of these students, this is their first organized activity with the high demands of a performance.  Unlike many of their peers around the Bay Area, they are not able to participate in sports teams, or play practice, so part of our learning is actually how to participate in a rehearsal. We are currently facing the challenges of  consistency, stamina, and which way to go first in our three-step turn!

I am confident though, that all goals can be achieved by performance day.

Good morning!

Working on shapes

Tibetan dance using practice scarves

We all went the correct way on our three-step turn!

Local students at a San Francisco Ballet Community Matinee.

These last two weeks have been a whirlwind. While Swan Lake was the beginning of the season, Programs 2 and 3 were the real dancing kick-off for me, personally. Being onstage every night is something that I haven’t done since last year and it always takes a little time to get acclimated. The difference between schedules is huge in many aspects, from what you eat and when, to how you push your body during the day. It also takes time just to get used to putting on a performance face every night. During rehearsal periods, we aren’t expected to perform every day and even during final rehearsals, while you need to project, it doesn’t have to be all the time. So switching to being on stage is almost a meditative practice. You have to come into the theater every night and remove yourself from all the bad or good that happened that day. Throughout your routine: warm-up, makeup, and getting into costume, you free your mind from distractions and focus on the character you’re portraying that evening. Of course the characters/roles range, from high to low stress, but there is always that period where you clear your mind. If you don’t, you get onstage and it can take you halfway through the performance before you transition from your introverted self to your outward, performance persona. At least we know first-hand, the definition of a stage vs. street identity. I’m sure movie stars and famous personalities have a much harder time with this distinction.

All of these musings comes to bear on the recent matinee I performed in. The Community Matinees (CMATs as they are referred to here), are special performances presented twice a year, to local elementary school children. CMATs are part of the Ballet’s community outreach efforts and a great way to experience a different audience. The children are much more moved by base emotion; they don’t have the performance etiquette or “training” that adults do, so there are constant outbursts from them which makes the performance really gratifying and fun.SF Ballet recently received a grant to further our new media efforts and technological capabilities, and the company decided to put some of this towards outreach. The idea was to stream the CMAT performance live, to a number of the schools in the Bay Area, allowing the show to be broadcast to a larger age range, which meant making the performance content more educational and behind-the-scenes. It also gave us freedom to get creative from a filming stand point. I was asked to perform some hip hop for the beginning of the show as a catalyst, a way to draw the older kids in immediately and get them to keep an open mind about ballet. I trained in hip hop early in my life and have kept up with it throughout the years, but this was very different than the regular performing I do (or the company does). It was almost more like being asked to choreograph something.  I was given complete freedom as long as it got a stamp of approval in the end. I picked the music, choreographed the movement, chose my outfit, and dictated the lighting to an extent. It was such a freeing experience in a way. As a hip hop dancer, I relish the freedom of movement and I was glad not to have any boundaries. Ironically the hardest part was deciding what to wear since we usually have Wardrobe telling us what costume to put on, so the freedom of choice was almost overwhelming.

Tying back to the beginning, I realized very quickly that the mental process of this preparation was going to be very different. I was wearing regular clothes, opening the show without anything to feed off of, and my warm-up had to be completely different for what I was doing. That sort of variety really threw me off.  Standing in the middle of that giant Opera House stage five minutes before the curtain went up, my heart rate began to pick up and I kept wondering if there was anything else I could do to be more prepared. I could hear all of the children right on the other side of that curtain, talking to each other; I’m sure they expected to see tutus when the curtain went up.  Luckily for me, my instincts are pretty ingrained at this point. When the curtain came up and the pool of light was on me, my mind went pretty blank. I remember very little sound from the performance, even the music I had picked seemed faint. I just remember looking directly up into the spotlight as the music swelled and wondering if this is how Michael Jackson ever felt, and that it was completely worth it. It’s the rush of a thousand eyes on you alone and the feeling of total exhilaration as you let your body take over and do what it knows best. It’s like you stop thinking and processing, and just let physical memory take you from one movement to the next. My part was over before I knew it and luckily, it won’t be the last time I get this opportunity. The feedback was really positive after the show and I think it will be repeated for the other CMAT performances this year. Now I’ll be able to prepare more and hopefully enjoy it a bit more in the moment.

This past week, as I sat in the theater watching the dress rehearsals for Fokine’s Petrouchka, I was once again reminded of the glory of the old theater. The ornate costumes, hand-painted sets and scrims, dramatic makeup and the odd, eccentric story of the production caused a stirring of nostalgia. This was created at a time when the ballet was full of drama, when Picasso and Matisse painted the sets. It’s fun to see the Opera House stage so transformed. There are supers crowding the stage and during the street scene there are 102 people onstage. The production is full of all kinds of colorful characters: gypsies, coachmen, street dancers, nursemaids and of course, the dolls: Petrouchka, the Ballerina, and the Moor.

Clara Blanco in the role of the Ballerina in Petrouchka

Nowadays, the focus of many new works is the dancing. Balanchine stripped away the sets and costumes, revolutionizing the dance world with his plotless ballets. On this same program, we are dancing in the middle, somewhat elevated by William Forsythe who has been heavily influenced by Balanchine. He took the Balanchine ideal even further by removing the wings of the stage and the theatrical lighting. The dancers only wear leotards and tights, and are dancing in highly stylized, rhythmic patterns. The focus is on the bodies, the movement, and the technical feats of the dancers. There is no story to tell or emotions to convey, only dancing.

Though, I love dancing these new, technically challenging works by great choreographers, I must admit that I have a romantic feeling about the old works, and the idea of what ballet used to be (the glamorous makeup and the highly dramatic stories). Even the patrons would show-up dressed to impress: women in their gloves and stoles, fans with opera glasses in hand; men smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and slicked hair–all for an evening at the ballet.

Anyhow, I invite you all to come to the wonderfully diverse Program 4. It is such a fun journey to see where we came from and where we are going. And, if you feel like it, why not pull out your evening gowns and tuxedos? What a glamorous life we live at the ballet!

Our main performance composition is based on traditional West African Ghanaian dance. This is an upbeat rhythmic dance with some rather sophisticated choreography for young students. Luckily though, the children seem to really like it, as they are challenged by the intricacies of the staging. In this dance, there is a section where selected students will perform a solo they have choreographed themselves. For several, it will be their first time dancing on a stage alone.

Our second composition is exciting in an entirely different way. We will be performing a sign language dance based on American Sign Language (ASL). For this “dance”, the students get to receive coaching from a trained sign language interpreter, who is also a performing artist. We will be performing to Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”, a wonderful musical standard, full of emotion and compassion.

As a normal part of our preparation for performances, the students learn background about the origins and historical connections of the dances. So, just as they’ll earn a little about life and culture in Ghana, they will also learn about the non-hearing world, and what being deaf can be like for other children. My hope is that through these kinds of experiences, my students will become more sensitive and respectful about other cultures, and those with special needs.

We have yet to name the dances we will perform, but we usually save that until near the end of the rehearsal process. I will let the students select the names.

Stay tuned to see what they come up with!

Students practice a victorious ending to our Ghanaian dance.

Here I am demonstrating a basic African dance step for the students.

Students are struggling to learn a new step; the pivot turn.

This young boy is working on choreography for his solo.

Principal Dancer Lorena Feijoo in Forsythe's in the middle, somewhat elevated, featured on Program 4 which opens tonight.

San Francisco Ballet in Possokhov's Diving into the Lilacs which opens as part of mixed bill Program 4 next Tuesday. (© Erik Tomasson)

Sofiane Sylve, Tiit Helimets, and Garen Price Scribner in Wheeldon's Ghosts featured on Program 2. Final performances of this program take place on Thursday, Feb. 18 and Saturday, Feb. 20. (© Erik Tomasson)

The school lies in the heart of the Castro and not only do these children learn about Harvey Milk and how he supported equal rights for gay people, but they learn about several international human rights activists. Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy works to implement these standards in the classroom with a diverse population of students.

Our choreography is based on teamwork and the dance is meant to honor the work and commitment of several civil rights activists that have helped to shape our society.

Today the dancers were asked to come up with one word that came to mind when thinking of human rights and what it takes to have equality for all people. They created a movement based on that word and in small groups, threaded each movement together to create their own choreography. It feels extremely empowering to have everyone contribute to this dance. Thus, everyone has an equal opportunity to express their voice through movement.

Here I am listening to my dancer’s ideas.

Students learning through observation of their peers.

These dancers are experimenting with a movement for the word ‘hope’.

What an interesting shape!

And an even better ending to their movement phrase.