Coronavirus brought to a halt most cultural activities, but also prompted us to realise the potential of digital events. Quite a few theatres all over the world started organising digital shows that can be enjoyed from home, at times from other countries as well, so that we are able to experience beauty even in lockdown, with shows filmed miles away from where we are at the moment. Some theatres and companies offer subscriptions to a series of shows or the chance to watch just one performance.
San Francisco Ballet offers packages or single programmes with multiple performances for example, such as Program 3 (until 24th March), that includes Alexei Ratmansky's Symphony #9, Yuri Possokhov's "Swimmer" and "Wooden Dimes", a celebration of the Roaring Twenties with some fashion connections.
The title of the story is inspired by the American saying "Don't take any wooden nickels" meaning "don't be naive", "keep an eye open for yourself" and follows the vicissitudes of a married couple, Robert and Betty Fine.
As Betty rises to stardom as a chorus girl, Robert remains stuck in his repetitive job. Fame awaits the former, despair and depression the latter as their relationship shifts.
The process behind the making of the ballet is actually very intriguing: because of Coronavirus, rehearsals had to be organised following the San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines. Director of Photography Heath Orchard followed via Zoom, thanks to a camera set in the front of the studio.
Choreographer and director Danielle Rowe, in the meantime, went around the dancers and filmed them with her iPhone, providing Orchard with her own unique vision, focusing on more intimate details like hands touching (an important element as considering that with Coronavirus we have lost the tactile dimension). From a piece for the stage, "Wooden Dimes" became therefore a work for camera lenses, with Rowe guiding the gaze of the audience to smaller gestures.
This view allowed Rowe to find new angles and realise how some scenes may have been shortened or cut. The number of dancers was also reduced, but Rowe introduced mirrors and fans that allowed to create visual illusions. The ballet was therefore turned into a proper dance film that may prove entertaining for its ebullient style also for those ones who aren't usually into this genre. "Wooden Dimes" is indeed a combination of Rowe’s experiences as a choreographer and dancer (she previously danced with the Australian Ballet, the Houston Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater, learning to "speak" the body language of different dance companies).
There is a juxtaposition of spaces in this ballet: the real San Francisco Ballet stage turns into the fictional stage of the story with the chorus girls dancing, while the scenes shot in a fictional backstage where the performers get dressed transforming into the main characters of a story, hint at the many theatres that had to close down and at the many dressing rooms left empty for months during the pandemic.
Fashion fans may want to check the costumes by Emma Kingsbury. The Australian designer has created designs for the ballet, opera, TV, theatre and film (the latest film she contributed to is Mark William's "Blacklight", due for release in late 2021).
For "Wooden Dimes" Kingsbury evoked the 1920s, a decade that marked many social, political, economic, and artistic changes. Among the inspirations for the costumes there are The Ziegfield Follies, the Egyptomania trend that started in 1922, the year that Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered and Erté's formulation of the modern female silhouette. There is also an arty touch and a few echoes of Sonia Delaunay in the colour combinations that replace the black and white moods in the costume Betty wears when she becomes more famous.
Last but not least, the costume designers tried to create contrasts between the passion for machines and technology of the Art Deco times and the more glamourous side of the Style Moderne (think the formal suits and gowns in a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' number) with the feather fans. These contrasts are symbolised by the joyful numbers with the Ziegfield Follies-like girls around Betty and the darker performances about Robert's desperation.
Rowe and Kingsbury had to work on the designs remotely, and together they picked fabrics, dyeing, finishing techniques such as pencil, crayon, gouache and watercolour applications, and headwear.
The film could be considered as very pertinent to our times: the Roaring Twenties came after the Spanish Flu and quite a few people are looking at this period at the moment, highlighting how it came after a pandemic and was characterised by optimism, prosperity and ebullience, hoping this is what awaits us as well at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel.
In the same programme, you will also find Yuri Possokhov's "Swimmers", based on John Cheever's short story The Swimmer and on Yuri Possokhov's ballet.
This surrealist story about a man who swims home through his neighbors' pools was transformed in this case into a tour through American culture, art and literature with references going from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye to Jack London's Martin Eden and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, from Edward Hopper's painting "Nighthawks" to Mike Nichols' film "The Graduate".
If you like literary references in ballet, you can also join the book club at the San Francisco Ballet: you will read a book that inspired a ballet and that will be discussed in a Zoom meeting during which the story will also be compared to clips from various performances.
While we all hope Coronavirus will soon disappear from our lives, so that we can start enjoying live performances again, some activities like the possibility of buying digital tickets for shows in other countries or join fun Zoom events should maybe continue also after the pandemic as they allow a wider audience to live innovative cultural experiences and appreciate performances recorded all over the world.
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