Foundation Gets Back to Basics With Dance Bill

The San Francisco Ballet and Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater will serve as bookends for a seven-attraction series of pure dance events scheduled for San Diego during the 1990-91 season.

The hefty package, offered by the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, was announced Tuesday at a press conference at the Spreckels Theater, where all but two of the events will take place. The series includes three more events than the organization sponsored on last year’s eclectic bill.

The highly acclaimed San Francisco Ballet will start the season Oct. 2-3, with the San Diego premiere of the company’s $780,000 centennial production of “Sleeping Beauty.” The masterpiece, staged by artistic director Helgi Tomasson, will be danced at Civic Theater, with a full symphony orchestra to do justice to Tchaikovsky’s beloved score.

Besides the full-length work, the San Francisco-based troupe is preparing a repertory program, culled from its current season, for performances Oct. 5-6. Programming for that mixed bill has yet to be announced, although the concert is expected to contain works by George Balanchine, Lew Christensen, William Forsythe, Agnes De Mille and Tomasson. A live orchestra will accompany these performances as well.

The San Francisco Ballet, recognized as one of the top three ballet troupes in the country, was scheduled to perform its “Nutcracker” in San Diego last year (under San Diego Performances’ sponsorship). But the company canceled that visit amid rumblings of fiscal unrest in the now-moribund San Diego Performances. This scheduled double bill from San Francisco marks the troupe’s first appearance in town since 1988.

Three performances by Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater, now under the direction of former Ailey superstar Judith Jamison, will close the season April 26-28.

Program details for the American Dance Theater’s stay are unavailable at this time. However, the concerts will probably feature work by the Apostle of Black Dance himself, Alvin Ailey, who founded the company in 1958 and brought the black cultural experience into bold relief with his expanded lexicon of modern dance.

Not all the imports on this year’s roster are household names. Tucked in between the two celebrated dance troupes are Rosa Montoya Bailes Flamencos, ODC/San Francisco, Pirin Bulgarian National Folk Ensemble, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Co.--groups that have yet to be discovered by most San Diego aficionados, although all have been lauded in the dance capitals of the world.

The smattering of non-dance events that have peppered the past two seasons for the foundation (such as Philip Glass’ “futuristic visual libretto” in 1988 and Paul Dresher’s rock opera, seen last year), have been bypassed this season as the foundation returns to an all-dance orientation.

Also left out of this season’s slate are any frivolous, show-biz-style offerings, such as the recent “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” show, which proved a money-maker but an artistic dud.

“The board decided to go back to pure dance,” said director Fred Colby. “It’s a niche that needed to be filled, and we intend to focus on dance.”

After the San Francisco Ballet finishes its two-part run at the Civic, the series moves to the Spreckels Theater, where it will be ensconced for the remaining five attractions.

Rose Montoya will bring the emotion-charged Gypsy-flamenco traditions of her native Spain and the Spanish dance company she founded in 1974 to San Diego on Nov. 9-10. Special guest Juan Talvera, a Spanish dancer whose career spans opera, films and television, as well as concert dance, will join the ranks of Rosa Montoya Bailes Flamencos for these local performances.

Following in December are seven performances of a family oriented holiday ballet, “The Velveteen Rabbit.” The work, set to the music of Benjamin Britten, will be performed by ODC/San Francisco on Dec. 19-23.

The modern dance company (founded in 1971 as the Oberlin Dance Collective) has its own 200-seat theater in San Francisco and presents a season at San Francisco’s Civic Center as well. Eastern European folk dance is also coming. On Feb. 14-16, the Pirin Bulgarian National Folk Ensemble will demonstrate the stamina and vitality that prompted Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times to observe, “At all times the energy quotient was at an impressive high.”

The Pirin Bulgarian National Folk Ensemble will show off the virtuosity of its female choir as well as its prowess afoot in the troupe’s local debut.

The foundation is obviously counting on the popularity of this style of folk expression (introduced at San Diego’s Soviet Arts Festival) to attract new audiences.

Bill T. Jones’ “The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin” will bow in during Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Co.’s two-day stay March 19-20, only a couple of months after the work makes its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

This multimedia theater piece, loosely based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 19th-Century classic “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “explores slavery, faith and the death of liberalism,” according to its creator.

The 8-year-old San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts ended last season in the black but has increased its budget from last year’s $560,000 to more than $1 million for this seven-event slate.

“We’ve kept the budget as low as we could,” said Colby. “We’ll never have a season with six or seven major companies. But we don’t think there is much of a risk factor. The risk will only be in the increased size, not in the quality or type of attractions we’re offering.”

Colby acknowledged that many of the companies in this season’s lineup are “relatively unknown here.” But, he added, “I think that each of them has a little hook. Montoya has the flamenco, and ODC has family appeal.

“The riskiest one artistically is Bill T. Jones. But I feel very good about it,” he assured. “Of course, we know we still have to raise half a million dollars for the season. But we have a good mix. And we’re doing what we want. We’re not reacting to outside pressures.”