Ballet galas tend to be strenuously glossy affairs, with select groups of stars vying with each other for the public's applause. But San Francisco's gala on Monday (marking the company's London debut) had a much more democratic spirit. Encompassing a range of ballet snippets, from Petipa to Forsythe, it didn't just showcase the attractive expertise of over two dozen individuals, it also created the impression of a company beguilingly at ease with itself. The dancers were technically at home in an impressively wide range of genres, and, more importantly their dancing looked as fresh and musical as if they were doing it for fun.
It's this quality which Mark Morris highlights in his Sandpaper Ballet, a work which he created for San Francisco in April and which was the highlight of their programme on Tuesday. It's set to music by the 50s hit writer Leroy Anderson, who composed in the homey upbeat style of Broadway and Hollywood musicals. Choreographically, Morris mines the musical genre with equal gusto. His huge cast (25 dancers) look like the citizens of some small town community who've been working as dance extras all their lives. They mill around the stage as if it were the neighbourhood square, the men stolling like cowboys the women preening their imaginary finery. But this is no Oklahoma! update. Deftly woven into the demotic vocabulary are glinting streaks of classicism which make the dancers sparkle, and overall the piece is organised with such breathtaking structural wit that familiar elements are turned inside out into surprises.
Jerome Robbins's The Cage was choreographed in 1951 and some of its more self conscious aggressiveness can seem lame to a late-20th-century audience. Its scenario is essentially Act II of Giselle set in a colony of man-eating female spiders, with a Queen instructing her Novice in the destruction of male intruders. Robbins's angular split crutch moves, fevered, fetishistic vision of female sexuality have become cliches of modern-classical crossover ballet, but what sets The Cage apart is the driven intensity of its imaginings and the startling arachnoid detail of its choreography.
Most riveting on Tuesday was Lucia Lacarra as The Novice, whose extravagantly supple slenderness allowed her to move with a fluidity that defied human physiology. As she writhed and slithered over her prey she looked like a dangerous but exquisite rare species.
The dancing was less convincing, however in Balanchine's Theme and Variations. Led by Tina LeBlanc and Roman Rykine the cast performed accurately and well, yet they lacked the Opera House grandeur on which the work depends. This is a ballet for which dancers need to put on their jewels, and San Francisco had left theirs at home.
Till Saturday. Box office: 0171-863 8000.
