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Rachel Howard May 9, 2021Updated: May 10, 2021, 9:53 pm
Tessa Barbour and Ricardo Dyer perform “The Man I Love” in the Bruns Amphitheater of California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda. Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle
Celia Fushille, artistic director of Smuin Contemporary Ballet, stepped on the sun-drenched stage of Orinda’s California Shakespeare Theater on Sunday, May 9, the breeze rippling her peach and blue scarf, and proclaimed, “An audience! Live theater! I’m going to get emotional.”
Befitting the wooded picnic setting, however, no tears were shed at “Smuin al Fresco.” This was a happy milestone as the mainstay Bay Area dance company became the first to return to live performance. The troupe did so with the same grace Fushille has shown leading the company throughout the pandemic, keeping Smuin’s 13 dancers employed and creatively engaged during the past year on screen, and now finally in the flesh.