SF Ballet finally went clubbing. It's called 'The Blake Works'

"The Blake Works is what happens when you take sweat and a filthy bass line, and pour them into a leotard. It's 21 dancers moving like they're at last call and the floor is theirs. It's ballet that dances like it has somewhere better to be, but stays to entertain us anyway."

"The staging was aggressively minimalist: bare stage, harsh lighting, and hardly a set piece in sight. Give me nothing, put it on a black stage, add a barre, and the music by James Blake. And into that void, SF Ballet poured movement that was fluid and modern and undeniably street-inflected in ways that made me think less of classical dance and more of the film Step Up, Britney music videos, and a very specific dance from short-lived TV show Étoile."

"SF Ballet has been roasting under national scrutiny thanks to its lingering curtain call at the Kennedy Center coming up in May. The internet did what the internet does, and suddenly patrons were ready to burn their season tickets over the idea of lending the company's prestige to what had become a Republican trophy case."

SF Ballet presented William Forsythe's triple bill featuring 21 dancers performing fluid, modern movement with street-dance influences on a bare stage with minimal staging. The performance combined classical ballet with contemporary aesthetics, drawing comparisons to hip-hop culture and popular media. Simultaneously, SF Ballet announced it cancelled its Kennedy Center performances scheduled for May following significant public controversy and social media backlash over concerns regarding the company's institutional prestige. The decision came just before the premiere, with the announcement made during the performance itself. The evening included The Barre Project, a piece created during COVID lockdown using Zoom technology, featuring projected video of dancers at barres.

Read at The Bold Italic