Culture

Ballerina on fire
Classic: Getting in shape after giving birth was a snap for San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Kristin Long. She just jumped right back into rehearsals. “The dressing room becomes like a home,” says Long, who can handle demanding roles “that don’t stop”—like the tavern keeper’s daughter Kitri in Don Quixote. “At one time, I thought about moving to another company. After I had my son, Kai, I realized I had something special here,” she says, noting that the company and some of the ushers (who save a seat for Kai at shows) are like family to her. She teaches the younger dancers that performing when exhausted requires exerting mind over matter and that you have to learn to adopt new personas seamlessly. “One minute you’re walking pigeon-toe like a cowboy, and the next you’re trying to be a beautiful swan,” she says. “After 17 years of that, you turn into a dancer who can adapt from one style to the other.” Breaking the string bean–thin ballerina stereotype, the able-bodied and muscular Long brings elegance and spotless technique and moves to her performance with a good-tempered determination that demands the audience’s attention.
Future classic: Bangkok-born Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun—Ommi for short—is best known for making the leap from student to soloist at age 18. Once you see her long, fluid lines and breathtakingly high extension, you’ll search for her on the casting list before buying tickets. While Ommi was training at London’s Royal Ballet School, San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson spotted her at a student performance and whisked her away with a soloist contract. But being groomed for stardom hasn’t been easy for Ommi, who notes that she isn’t as strong as her colleagues. One day after performing in Sleeping Beauty she was rehearsing for another performance. “My thigh was trashed,” she says. “I was exhausted, but I kept pushing and pushing—and boom.” She tore a major ligament in her knee, sidelining herself until the 2008 season. Still, injuries are all in a day’s work for a ballerina, just another challenge—albeit a big one—for this blossoming star.

Man in tights
Classic: Principal dancer Damian Smith, who has performed with the San Francisco Ballet for more than a decade, recognizes that he can’t hold the title forever. “The new talent is coming up, and eventually I will have to move aside,” says the Australia native, who trained in methods that stress musicality, technical precision, and alignment. But he doesn’t plan to hang up his shoes anytime soon. A former New York School of American Ballet student, Smith joined the French companies Concordanse and Ballet du Nord but soon yearned for the athleticism of American classical dance, which continues to raise the bar. “In the last five years, San Francisco Ballet has introduced a lot of new stuff into the repertoires,” says Smith, adding that a mixed rep lets everyone find something they like. Elegantly supporting tall, long-limbed dancers like Yuan Yuan Tan and Muriel Maffre, Smith continues to captivate audiences with a certainty and a graceful candor that come with years of experience.

Future classic: Inspired at age 5 by a Michael Jackson video, James Sofranko wanted to move like the King of Pop. He later gravitated to ballet, where he learned that classical Balanchine dancers needed to be tall, very slender, and flexible. While he didn’t fit the prototype, he held on to the belief that he could captivate audiences with his musicality and movement, and he continued to hone his ability to meld a variety of dance forms. At age 14, he was told it was unlikely he’d ever become a professional ballet dancer. But Sofranko, who was recently made a soloist in the San Francisco Ballet, didn’t listen, thank goodness. Now at age 28, he has his own distinct style but believes in learning from his elders: “I notice the small things, like the way Damian Smith partners, or I will stand behind Tina LeBlanc when she takes class and copy her port de bras,” he says. Now it turns out he’s just what the classical ballet world wants, and companies like San Francisco’s with increasingly mixed reps will soon need more dancers like Sofranko.

Theater, revamped
Classic and future classic: How do you entice Marinites to leave their home media center and go to the movies? That was the challenge facing Bernice Baeza and Heidi Hillenbrand when they leased a 1936 Art Deco masterpiece, Larkspur’s non-profit Lark Theater, and lovingly restored it with the help of Mill Valley architects Antonina Markoff and Bruce Fullerton. Now the theater’s co-owners, Baeza and Hillenbrand found a winning formula with cinema, culture, and community: a slate of first-run and classic films, special screenings targeted to students and teachers at local high schools, a young filmmakers’ competition, international film festivals, and unique programming thanks to a live satellite feed. This year’s Live at the Met’s calendar features New York Metropolitan Opera performances in high definition and surround sound, the World Cup soccer championship, Super Bowl Sunday, and the absolute best Academy Awards show in the Bay Area.
(Hint: the food, catered by eight of Larkspur’s top restaurants, makes it.) 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur, 415-924-5111,
www.larktheater.net

Gay theater
Classic: The world’s longest-running professional queer theater, Theatre Rhinoceros has come far since founder Allan B. Estes staged The West Street Gang, by Doric Wilson, in a SoMa leather bar in 1977. But despite taking productions to New York and collaborating with mainstream heavyweights like A.C.T., the Rhino remains true to its renegade spirit, programming solo shows by lesbian raconteur Marga Gomez and transsexual cabaret singer Veronica Klaus. 2926 16th St., S.f., 415-861-5079, www.therhino.org

Future classic: In its three years in the East Bay, Theatre Q has been putting on productions like Peter Ackerman’s Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight and David Stevens’s The Sum of Us that are helping to cultivate younger audiences for gay theater. Director Dale Albright deftly guides his actors through performances that have so far wowed Bay Area theater critics.
510-326-8197, www.theatreq.org

Sound sculptures
Classic: The space-age Audium, a classic “theater of sound-sculpted space,” opened in 1965, and ever since we’ve been fulfilling our need for shaped sound waves with its 169 insanely powerful speakers while settled in its cushy seats. Intensity, motion, lightness, and heft are but a few themes of the venue’s regular Friday and Saturday night events, which afford entertainment for all connoisseurs of experimental performance.
www.audium.org

Future classic: Risk the jagged, metallic edges of postmodern cacophonous howl at Project>Soundwave’s periodic exhibitions at the likes of the Lab, the Luggage Store, and Artists’ Television Access. Since 2004, the group has been capturing cutting-edge play with screeches, choral loops, bleeps and blips, earthy drum rhythms, and feedback that toy with the concept of audio landscapes. They’ve even released a CD—just the thing to drown out the screech of BART going through the tube.
www.projectsoundwave.com

Rare-book hideout
Classic: Owned and operated by Peter B. Howard—an eccentric cult figure in the Bay Area bookseller scene—Serendipity holds over 500,000 secondhand and rare books, literary magazines, and broadsides for you to peruse. Most of the books in the store are no longer available from publishers, and you’ll never catch Howard pushing anything, even though he says every item there is of particular interest and value to him. “My life is dedicated to telling people what exists, not telling them what to buy,” he says. Somehow we find that refreshing.
1201 University Ave., Berkeley, 510-841-7455,
www.serendipitybooks.com

Future classic: Book lovers just call it “the warehouse.” Jeff Maser Books sits tucked, sans signage, like an unpretentious flower of intellectual delight, in the flat, foul-aired, industrial Berkeley lowlands. Maser does most of his business online, but anyone can arrange a book-hunting junket through his 40,000 volumes of poetry (see his seemingly endless shelves of works by post–WWII poets), fiction, nonfiction, art books, 5,000 broadsides, and 20,000 old literary magazines, all in a well-lighted, book-lined labyrinth.
911 Camelia ST., Berkeley, 510-524-8830, www.detritus.com

Shrine to the flick
Classic: All bow to the granddaddy of them all, Berkeley’s PFA, as it’s affectionately called. The Pacific Film Archive is still putting on films that get people talking—and thinking—41 years after its first makeshift screenings on the UC Berkeley campus. It was the training ground for local impresario Tom Luddy. It may seem a wee bit purist—especially with nary a whiff of popcorn and not a single Milk Dud for sale (vegan and nonvegan guests alike swear by the adjacent raw-food haven Café Muse)—but after all, it was one of the first independent art house theater in the United States.
2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, 510-642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Future classic: Hollywood epics deserve big screens and great sound, and of course, the new Century Theatres Westfield San Francisco does justice to those films’ digitally enhanced special effects. The theater boasts adjustable-armrest faux-leather seats, Nathan’s hot dogs, ice cream, and real buttered popcorn. Plus, there are no pre-movie commercials. But under Westfield San Francisco Centre’s high-class roof, you’ll find many other delicious options—filet mignon at Lark Creek Steak and green papaya salad at Charles Phan’s Out the Door being but two examples. With cream puffs from Beard Papa and a chocolate confection from Tom’s Cookies, the days of smuggling Junior Mints into the theater are merely a bad memory. Make a night of it—or better yet, sneak away from work and take a long, long lunch.
865 Market St., S.F., 415-929-4650

Dance populist
Classic: Michael Smuin, 68, the dancer turned choreographer who transcended critical disdain with his eclectic, truly American synthesis of classical ballet and showbiz pizzazz, died April 23 in the middle of rehearsal. His acclaimed body of work includes TV productions of his ballets Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and the Emmy Award–winning A Song for Dead Warriors; Tony Award-winning choreography for the New York revival of Anything Goes; and contributions to such feature films as The Cotton Club and The Joy Luck Club. As recent performances of Smuin ballets aptly illustrated, even when he crossed supposedly sacrosanct lines, his innovations brilliantly honored composers’ intentions. In addition to his blood relatives, he leaves behind his extended family in the Smuin Ballet.

Future classic: Now directed by Celia Fushille-Burke—a former muse of Smuin’s who danced in many of his productions and was associate director from 1988 until Smuin’s death—the company Smuin inspired is well equipped to preserve his choreographic legacy. Anyone who danced under the watchful gaze of Michael Smuin no doubt remembers the praise and criticism handed down by the master.

Fearless musical leader
Classic: After leading his hometown Berkeley Symphony Orchestra for 29 years, music director Kent Nagano will step down at the conclusion of his 30th season. He leaves behind both his new, smaller Berkeley Academy Ensemble and an extraordinary legacy of nearly 100 premieres that have variously delighted and confounded loyal audiences. From 1979’s West Coast premiere of Busoni’s Turandot and the historic 1981 Davies Symphony Hall performance of Messiaen’s Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with the composer’s wife at the piano, to evenings of Frank Zappa, Thomas Adès, Jean-Pascal Beintus, and Unsuk Chin, Nagano has ensured that “only in Berkeley” applies to orchestral firsts as well as tie-dye diapers. www.berkeleysymphony.org

Future classic: His arresting good looks, youthful exuberance, keen intelligence, and ease before orchestra and public alike sometimes bring Michael Tilson Thomas to mind, but Benjamin Shwartz’s mastery as music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra reflects his ability to forge his own path. Shwartz’s commitment to new music—he just shepherded the SFSYO through its 25th-anniversary season—bodes well for San Francisco Symphony’s latest resident conductor. Stay tuned for his June 5, 2008, conducting debut with the grown-ups.
www.sfsymphony.org

Source of new music
Classic: For 30 years, KUSF (90.3 FM) has been broadcasting the coolest, weirdest, and wildest new music from its studios on the University of San Francisco campus. Today, the station is still the place to discover cutting-edge sounds, from hip-hop and indie rock to freak folk, electronica, and many others.
www.kusf.org

Future classic: Founded in April 2005 by Travis Heynen and cocurated by DJ Richard Oh, the Big Stereo blog posts MP3s of fidgety rock, rubbery techno, and punky ’80s obscurities—many of which show up on the turntables of cool nightclubs six months later. One place many of them can be heard before the copycats catch on is at Oh’s DJ night, Hold Yr Horses, the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month at Aunt Charlie’s, where you’ll also hear some gems the blog isn’t allowed to post. By Oh’s account, those Tuesdays are when the true freaky-music lovers come out.
www.this.bigstereo.net, www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Gallery
Classic: An exhibit at California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute might survey software art, delve into artists’ archives, or even showcase imperceptible work such as Bruno Jakob’s paintings made with invisible ink or Jay Chung’s movies shot without film in the camera (both of which were part of the recent exhibition A Brief History of Invisible Art). The compelling curatorial independence of the Wattis, encouraged by the progressive educational mission of the college, brings deserved attention to exciting art outside the mainstream, providing a needed antidote to the usual blockbuster Matisse-and-Picasso aspirations.
1111 eighth St., S.f., 415-551-9210

Future Classic: On any given day, Hou Hanru may be curating a biennial in Venice or Istanbul. Or he might be organizing the latest show at the San Francisco Art Institute’s Walter and McBean Galleries, which serve as the school’s modest two-room exhibition space. As SFAI’s new director of exhibitions, Hanru has practically reinvented the space by drawing on his roster of international talent, leveraging the artists’ diversity in important, politically charged exhibits such as Wherever We Go, a show by and about the world’s displaced, on display through September.
800 chestnut st., s.f., 415-749-4563, www.sfai.edu

Classical theater
Classic: Now in its 33rd year, California Shakespeare Theater continues to draw audiences to its magical outdoor amphitheater with tantalizing, deeply relevant productions
of plays by the Bard and other canonical writers. This month, the troupe takes on George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. But even the laughs elicited by Shaw’s work can’t ward off the chill of the evening fog—bring a down jacket and thick socks.
100 gateway blvd., orinda, 510-548-9666, www.calshakes.org

Future classic: The Bay Area might be a hotbed for experimental and contemporary drama, but the Cutting Ball makes perennials like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and Sartre’s No Exit seem as if they were written only yesterday, and it introduces hot, up-and-coming playwrights to its slightly younger, theater-hungry Bay Area audience. Helmed by Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers and attracting some of the Bay Area’s most promising actors, the hip, youthful ensemble brings a startling visual sensibility and a bold interpretive sense to all its work, turning classics into living, breathing plays rather than classroom assignments.
415-419-3584, www.cuttingball.com

Local publication about the arts
Classic: Menlo Park–produced Communication Arts was started in 1959 by designer Richard Coyne and his wife, Jean, with the goal of showing design ideas beyond what was happening in New York. Since then, it’s gained an international following, and the growth of the West Coast design world has kept pace. But it’s not just for those in the industry trying to hunt down great artists: anyone with an interest in art will appreciate the book’s in-depth stories on photographers, illustrators, designers, and typographers and the various ways they’re shaping design. These days, the Coynes’ son Patrick has taken over the reins from his father, making it a mother-and-son operation (with an editorial staff and freelancers). Look for August’s issue featuring the winners of the annual photography competition.
www.commarts.com

Future classic: Back when Dennis Leary was thinking about opening his restaurant, Canteen, he discussed with his poet pal Sean Finney ways to give it a non-food-snob, community feel. The resulting literary banquets brought together local writers for readings, conversation, wine, and great food. And born out of this modern-day salon was the city’s newest literary mag, also called Canteen. The premiere issue featured Leary’s entertaining poke at the future of food, an essay by Po Bronson about a suicidal reader, and a dissection of refrigerator poetry by Julie Orringer and Ryan Harty. All the juicy prose and poetry is accompanied by a spare, lovely design and artwork by Ward Schumaker, David Shulman, and others. Editor-in-chief Finney says Canteen aspires to be “a sort of literary community on the page, a look into the creative process.” The quarterly’s future issues will feature writings by Joyce Maynard, Michael Chiarello, and rising star Benjamin Kunkel.
www.canteenmag.com