International Flavor of San Francisco Ballet : Tomasson brings a melting-pot company to Orange County Performing Arts Center for six-day engagement

The last time the San Francisco Ballet performed a traditional repertory program in Southern California was at Royce Hall in October, 1985--just four months after former New York City Ballet principal Helgi Tomasson had taken over as artistic director of the company.

With only a few exceptions, Tomasson was forced at the time to work mostly with the roster and the programing planned by his ousted predecessor, Michael Smuin.

But it has been four years, and that can mean a millennium in the fluid world of dance. When San Francisco Ballet opens its six-day debut engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday night, aficionados may have a bit of trouble recognizing it.

This season, the roster has increased to 59 dancers, only 19 of whom appeared at Royce. The tour repertory now consists primarily of works introduced in the Tomasson regime. The list of choreographers, which, in addition to Tomasson, includes George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, David Bintley, William Forsythe and Jiri Kylian (with “Le Corsaire” pas de deux recently added to the opening program), represents a diversity of styles inconceivable a few years ago.

But perhaps most significantly, San Francisco Ballet now dances with an assertively international flavor, a partial rebuke to self-styled experts who judge every troupe outside New York as a “regional company.”

Of the eight new members of the company this season, two (Yuri Zhukov from the Kirov Ballet and former Bolshoi Ballet soloist Galina Alexandrova) hail from the Soviet Union. Former Joffrey Ballet member Ashley Wheater was born in Scotland. Prix de Lausanne winner Jais Zinoun comes from Belgium.

They will join the troupe’s established luminaries, among them Mikko Nissinen (Finland), Ludmila Lopukhova (Soviet Union), Sabina Allemann (Switzerland, by way of National Ballet of Canada), Pascale Leroy (France) and Alexi Zubiria (Colombia).

Relaxing in his third floor office in the San Francisco Ballet Association building, Tomasson denies any conscious attempt to turn the company into a United Nations on points.

“I’ve just taken what’s available to me,” he says. “It’s been mostly the men. Tall men are not easy to find. But we’ve been lucky. I haven’t held auditions since my first year.”

Yet, when rumors circulated about Wheater’s growing dissatisfaction with the Joffrey, Tomasson wasted no time in making contact with the 30-year-old dancer who started at London’s Royal Ballet School and put in time with the London Festival Ballet and the Australian Ballet before accepting the late Robert Joffrey’s invitation.

In Orange County, Wheater will dance a major part in Forsythe’s high-tech “New Sleep” and roles in Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations” and Kylian’s moody “Forgotten Land.” He had observed the Bay Area troupe’s intermittently over three years, and Tomasson’s style suited his current career goals:

“At this point, I wanted to do more and more. I wanted the classics, like ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Tomasson’s new production will receive its premiere performance on March 13). And I’ll be in Bintley’s new piece next season. And I’d never really done any Balanchine before--it’s another way of moving, another kind of musical phrasing. There were some wonderful ballets at the Joffrey, but there were also many which did not challenge me enough.”

Wheater heartily endorses S.F. Ballet’s classroom standards:

“I’m already stronger technically after two months. We have four or five teachers and Helgi, who’s wonderful. Bonita Borne offers something different on the line of NYC Ballet. Irina Jakobson brings her Kirov training to the classroom. You have the ability to change.”

The company’s internationalism is a blessing for Wheater: “It’s like a melting pot and, hopefully, the meal will be good.”

Alexandrova’s story is a bit more dramatic than Wheater’s. When the Bolshoi performed here two years ago, she met her future husband, a member of the Opera House stage crew, on the final day of the engagement. After an extended international romance, they married last year. Alexandrova, 26, accepted a corps contract, even though she will dance soloist assignments, including the double pas de deux in Tomasson’s “Handel--A Celebration,” which concludes the company’s second Orange County program.

She didn’t really see S.F. Ballet perform until last winter, but she was, she says, mightily impressed:

“They did classical and modern works,” Alexandrova says in accented English.

“Even when they did modern, they were very soft and nuanced in their attacks. All the dancers were so clean and strong and performed with so much temperament.”

Knowing only Russian training until this year, Alexandrova welcomes an expansion of her horizons: “At the Bolshoi, there is only one style. I did it for seven years. It’s good, but then, after a while, you stop. You can’t take that style anywhere. Here, in San Francisco, you can learn from everyone.

“It would not be good,” she mused, “to go through life wondering if you could dance Balanchine and Forsythe.”

Those two choreographers have almost become a trademark of S.F. Ballet’s touring activities. Tomasson juxtaposed “Theme and Variations” and “New Sleep” on the same program in Tokyo in 1987 and Paris last May.

“They are proof of our versatility and range,” the director explains.

“How much further can you go in extremes and still remain part of the classical technical vocabulary? In their way, both of these works are a statement of what we are about. When I assembled these programs, I did it so that they might be interesting for me to come and watch, if I didn’t know anything about the company.

“And, of course, I tried to get as many of our dancers as possible on stage.”

It isn’t always easy, however. “With a home schedule running from mid-December through the beginning of May, with lots of breaks, there aren’t enough performance opportunities for the caliber of dancer we have now,” says Tomasson. With the pull-out from the November engagement in San Diego “for fiscal reasons,” Orange County will be the company’s only Southern California appearance this season.

There may likely be more in the future. Joyce Moffatt, general manager of the company, and recently appointed vice president, views this week’s visit very much as a pilot venture. “We’d like to come down to the Orange County Performing Arts Center every other year,” she says cautiously. Tomasson concurs: “We’re a major company in the state. Orange County should see us on a regular basis. It’s also good for the dancers’ growth and maturation. If you perform only for the same audience all the time, you can fall into the trap of becoming too secure.”

That Orange County has been known to book some of the world’s leading companies doesn’t faze Tomasson. That, in fact, the last “Theme and Variations” given there came from the Kirov, fazes him even less.

“It’s a beautiful and demanding piece, and our dancers always seem to rise to the occasion.

“Yes,” he says, smiling in typically diplomatic fashion, “we can stand up to the comparison.”