Feature: The 2023 Season at San Francisco Ballet Left Memories to Last a Lifetime

As composer Jonathan Larson so memorably asked, "How do you measure a year?" This is an even more vexing question in the world of ballet where careers are notoriously short and years are effectively compacted into five-month seasons. So how do you measure that? In world premieres, in pirouettes, in entrechats, in pairs of toe shoes used and discarded? As an avid balletgoer, I tend to measure a season in indelible memories. From San Francisco Ballet's recently concluded 2023 season, here are a baker's dozen that I'll still be dreaming of when the company recommences performances in December.

Most startling moment: Amidst all the hype and heightened expectations of the next@90 festival of nine world premieres that opened the season, the moment that stood out for me most vividly was actually the quietest. At the end of the third movement of Van Caniparoli's Emergence, Angelo Greco and Lucas Erni concluded a tenderly searching pas de deux by simply holding onto each other in total silence. The only sound we could hear was the dancers' breathing as it wafted up through the cavernous Opera House, which is something we never ever hear in ballet. Whether they were leaning on each other for support, for comfort, for love, for whatever, it felt like a distillation of the longing for human connection we've been so missing during the three years of the pandemic, at once vulnerable and life-giving. The fact that both Greco and Erni are the kind of spitfire dancers usually called upon to dazzle audiences with their speed and bravura only made this eerily quiet moment all the more affecting.

Divine De Sola: Sasha De Sola has been one of SFB's most entrancing ballerinas for some time now, but this season she really surpassed herself in a string of extravagantly imaginative and deeply virtuosic performances. From her sublimely incorporeal Giselle to her cut-glass angularity in Danielle Rowe's Madcap to her girl-next-door slouchy nonchalance in William Forsythe's Blake Works I, she made every single performance feel like a true event. This a ballerina whose artistry seems to know to no bounds.

Killer Joe: Joseph Walsh has long impressed me with his strong technique and affable stage demeanor. If you need someone to play the nice guy-prince, he's your man. Dancing two different roles in Romeo & Juliet, however, he was called upon to literally fight to the death and his commitment to the sheer violence of those scenes was nothing less than terrifying. His swoony Romeo suddenly became dangerously excitable, his drunken Mercutio nasty and surly. Neither conatained an ounce of cuteness to temper the tragedy.

Marvelous Misa: Playing opposite Walsh as Juliet was Misa Kuranaga, who turned in a career-best performance. She had me noticing tiny moments in this ballet that I'd never really grasped before, making it feel entirely new. The way she used her crystalline technique to carefully etch Juliet's emotional journey from giggly girl to tragic heroine was a master class in acting through dancing.

Luminous Wang: Wei Wang is one of those understated dancers who consistently astonishes by revealing new aspects of his artistry. This occurred in The Queen's Daughter, a ballet I didn't particularly care for - that is, until Wang entered midway through as The Prophet, a sort of John-the-Baptist figure. Wang was so otherworldly and ethereal that he seemed to be lit from within and exist on an entirely empyrean realm. The only other dancer I've ever seen achieve such an effect was the transcendent Michael Trusnovec in Paul Taylor's ode to Walt Whitman, Beloved Renegade, which is high praise indeed.

Fearless Fogo: Having joined SFB during the COVID shutdown, Swedish ballerina Nikisha Fogo suddenly seemed to be everywhere all at once this season, scoring in role after role that capitalized on her innate strength. After her serenely commanding Butterfly in Nutcracker, her ferocious Myrthe in Giselle, and her tough kid on the block in Blake Works I, she ended her season doing a 180 as a shy and tender Juliet. I can't wait to see what else she is capable of.

Soloists crushing it: Reaching the rank of soloist in a ballet company can sometimes be a bit of a dead end for dancers. They've proven themselves to be distinctive enough to rise from the ranks of the corps de ballet, but might never have that special something to make them principal dancer material. For soloists Cavan Conley, Isabella Devivo and Julia Rowe, this does not appear to be a problem. Conley's airborne antics had polish and panache, DeVivo's line an elegant vivacity and Rowe's full-body commitment to lightning-fast choreography showed that they are more than ready to dance leading roles.

Girl power: From multiple world premieres by women choreographers to the compelling contemporary classical scores by women composers to a woman conductor for Romeo & Juliet to the fierce women dancers onstage, girl power seemed to be everywhere this season. This was perhaps best personified by principal dancer Jennifer Stahl, whose effortless authority commanded attention again and again. Her cooly reserved Myrthe and intensely grieving Lady Capulet were polar opposites in terms of emotional expressiveness, but both shared a level of nuance that made these authority figures feel wonderfully alive.

Secret Sauce: Note to choreographers - if you want to make your piece better, cast Steven Morse in it. In ballet after ballet this season, Morse was often the one my eye was drawn to simply because he served the choreography so well, no matter the style. I can't tell you how he does it - he's certainly not a showoff - but any time a particular step looked a little tentative or wonky on the dancers, I just had to look to Morse to see how it was meant to be done. That is a rare gift indeed.

SFB Diaspora: It's just part of the deal with ballet that every season we lose a few topnotch dancers to other companies, but it was still a surprise to learn that principal dancers Dores André and Max Cauthorn are soon heading off to Zürich Ballet. This loss feels particularly acute as both rose through the ranks at SFB over so many years that we feel like we know them. I'll always remember André when she first made her mark as a dewily romantic ingenue in Christopher Wheeldon's Carousel (A Dance) back in 2007. Cauthorn has been a vivid presence ever since his days as an apprentice, but the image of him that will linger longest comes from this season, when at the end of Blake Works I he and Sasha De Sola fluttered their arms in perfect synchronicity to suggest a letting go of some kind. In retrospect, it served as a perfect coda to his tenure at SFB.

Well-deserved retirements: Every year some dancers decide it's time to bring their stage careers to an end. This season we bid a fond farewell to three of the company's longest-serving members. Principal dancer Tiit Helimets arrived on the scene in 2005 and instantly became SFB's danseur noble, a gallant partner to his ballerinas capable of dancing with elegant assurance. Soloist Hansuke Yamamoto joined SFB in 2001 and was known for his aerial abilities and clean technique. When he bowed out as Benvolio in Romeo & Juliet, he was still at the top of his game. And then there is the astonishing Anita Paciotti who came to SFB way back in 1968, which means she's seen multiple generations of dancers come and go during her tenure. A principal character dancer since 1987, her uncanny ability to portray fiery villains, doting mothers and Juliet's nurse with equal depth was a thing of wonder.

A perfect ending: The final performance of the season featured the ever-sublime Yuan Yuan Tan returning to her signature role of Juliet roughly a quarter-century after she first danced it, and she was as glorious as ever. I'll never forget the little stutter steps she took at the Capulet ball that evinced a surfeit of girlish energy, or the impetuous way she kept throwing her arms around Romeo at their wedding, as though she were willing her very soul to merge with his.

Harbingers of things to come: It's a distinct pleasure when members of the corps de ballet dance so well that they start to separate themselves from the pack. This season, Parker Garrison brought a delightfully offbeat enigmatic quality to his roles, Jamie Adele Stephens thrillingly combined fierceness with finesse, Joshua Jack Price was almost feral in his ability to take the stage, and Carmela Mayo consistently caught my eye just because she was so damned good night after night. I can't wait to see what these four in particular have in store for us when the next season starts in seven months. It will be the first one programmed by SFB's new Artistic Director Tamara Rojo and I can't wait to see what she's able to bring out in the company. Already counting the days!

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