Rachel Howard March 4, 2021Updated: March 14, 2021, 12:57 pm
Betty Fine (Sarah Van Patten) is a vaudeville chorus girl in “Wooden Dimes.” Photo: Lindsay Gauthier, San Francisco Ballet
If a choreographer wants to make the most of this pandemic era, Sarah Van Patten is the woman to put on the screen. Van Patten, who joined the San Francisco Ballet in 2002, is the finest actress-dancer in the company, so it is good to have a beautifully directed record of her theatrical genius in Danielle Rowe’s new dance film, “Wooden Dimes,” the clever Art Deco centerpiece of the Ballet’s digital Program 3, which begins streaming Thursday, March 4.
Rachel Howard January 15, 2021Updated: January 15, 2021, 6:21 pm
The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Music Director Martin West. Photo: San Francisco Ballet
Patrons prepared not by fastening their tuxedo cuff links but by downloading an app; the ribs bourguignon were served not piping hot in the War Memorial Opera House halls but reheated in the microwave after home delivery.
Yet there we were on Thursday, Jan. 14, for the opening gala of San Francisco Ballet’s 88th season, connected through our computer screens. There were the dancers, some with their spouses, in little Zoom boxes at virtual “tables,” free to socialize because their performances had been prerecorded.
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Inside the San Francisco Ballet s First-Ever Virtual Gala Leap Into the New Year brought a black-tie evening into the era of social distance. Lindsay Gauthier
On January 14th, the San Francisco Ballet performed an impressive new move: pivoting its annual gala to a virtual benefit.
The evening, which was hosted by company soloist Madison Keesler, featured excerpts from a new work by artistic director Helgi Tomasson as well as from pieces that will make their world premieres during the company’s 2021 virtual season. Two new principal dancers, Nikisha Fogo and Julian MacKay, made their SF Ballet debuts, and the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra provided the score.