2 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Ballet22 proves gender norms have no place in dance with electrifying S.F. show
A note inside the program for Ballet22's 2025 season encourages the audience to 'please clap and cheer for the dancers.' But the raucously adoring crowd at Cowell Theater for opening night hardly needed the reminder.
Founded in Oakland in 2020, Ballet22 is a small but ambitious pick-up troupe with a mission that, in these politically vicious times, presents a bold and joyful resistance. This is a company of men, trans and non-binary dancers who perform in pointe shoes, and not — as with the long-famous drag troupe Les Ballets Trockadero — for the sake of farce.
Put more simply: in a world where gender norms are all too often tools of oppression, Ballet22 celebrates the freedom of being fully and unapologetically yourself.
These summer shows, which kicked off Saturday, July 19, mark the group's ninth in-person program. But as attacks on gender non-conformity intensify, Ballet22's vision keeps becoming more urgent — just as the dancers' pointe technique grows more impressive.
Zsilas Michael Hughes, a corps member with Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet, was iconic on Saturday, their broad shoulders and muscled bare legs offset by the delicate white feathers of a 'Swan Lake' costume. Hughes had a lovely rubato quality, lowering that high développé leg to fifth on pointe oh so slowly. And if they struggled a bit with the balance-testing arm movements on the step up to an attitude, such honesty of effort is part of what Ballet22 offers.
Daniel R. Durrett, a Boston Ballet soloist who is also one of Ballet22's three co-directors, was happy to admit in a mid-show curtain speech that he'd just had a small slip in his 'Esmeralda' variation, because 'I made it work.' (Indeed he did, improvising a cover for skipping that third round of tambourine-to-toe taps because that working foot pushing into relevé said, 'No sorry, not today.')
As is customary at Ballet22 shows, every dancer got to show off a classical variation. Victor Maguad, who usually dances with Sacramento Ballet, pulled off a spectacular series of attitude hops on pointe in Leonid Lavrovsky's delicate choreography for 'Walpurgistnacht.' Trevor Williams was wonderfully playful in the famously devilish variation by Marius Petipa for 'Le Talisman.' Jake Speakman rocked the Italian fouettés in Medora's Act 2 variation from 'Le Corsaire.' But my favorite was Kobe Courtney, who trained at the San Francisco Ballet School, ravishingly fluid in her backbends as she portrayed the temple dancer Nikiya's death from 'La Bayadere.'
It was Courtney who shone brightest, too, in 'City of Humans,' a sometimes serene, sometimes sassy trio to Schubert by American Ballet Theatre principal James Whiteside. Originally choreographed for three female dancers, it was previously titled 'City of Women.' In this iteration, Maguad moved with a beautiful legato smoothness. But it was Courtney who commanded the space with huge jumps and a gorgeously stretched échappé.
The crowning accomplishment of the night was 'You Can Have Me!' a world premiere by former Forsythe Company member and now kNoname Artist director Roderick George, created in just two weeks.
The sextet — dressed in brown tunics, sans pointe shoes — launched with a disco ball and a hip-shimmying romp through Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love.' It was something of a gut-punch when the next section brought voiceovers of newscasters discussing the AIDS epidemic, as the dancers moved in slow motion.
Maguad had a beseeching solo to a clip from writer and performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon's 2024 Ford Foundation talk: 'The reason that people are seeking to oppress you is not because you are weak or fragile. It's precisely because you're powerful and tremendous.'
In the final section, to music by Pittsburgh performance collective Slowdanger, Hughes and Durrett shared an intense and often subtly virtuosic duet, Hughes curled on the floor as Durrett danced on above. The work was an ensemble statement of committed higher purpose.
As co-founder Theresa Knudson announced from the stage, Ballet22 will be back at the Cowell next July, and tickets are already on sale.
