Smuin Ballet announces season

By Mark Whittington

Mercury News


Six premieres and a new venue highlight the Smuin Ballet's 2005-06 season, announced this week.

The season includes two world premieres by company founder Michael Smuin and revivals of several of his popular works, including ``Fly Me to the Moon,'' ``Zorro!'' and ``To the Beatles, Revisited.'' The new works are ``Bluegrass/Slyde,'' set to the music of Edgar Meyer, and ``Symphony of Psalms,'' with music by Igor Stravinsky.

........Mr. Smuin's foray into similar territory was more akin to an Americana floor show at a Catskills resort.

REVIEW
Pole dancing and bluegrass intertwine in Smuin Ballet

Michael Wade Simpson, Special to The Chronicle

Monday, October 3, 2005

Bluegrass meets pole dancing in Smuin Ballet's new "Bluegrass/Slyde," part of the company's fall season, which opened on Friday night.

A lengthy video introduction about bluegrass and the composer Edgar Meyer is misleading: This piece is about merry-go-round movement on an elaborate set by James Beaumont. The aluminum grid and pole construction actually serves the choreography well. The specially-designed rotating poles break up the playing space so that Smuin is forced to drop old habits and work around the presence of the metal grid. The result is a Smuin work unlike any other.

Smuin Ballet gambles, and wins, on new works

Michael Wade Simpson, Special to The Chronicle

Without aiming to offend his legions of loyal fans, Michael Smuin is changing the rules. Smuin Ballet is no longer solely a repository of Smuin's work -- it is a place where up-and-coming choreographers can try out their talents in front of a captive audience. It is an extremely generous (and expensive) gesture on his part, but the gamble pays off. "The Melting," Amy Seiwert's new work, is the most exciting original choreography seen on a local stage in a long time.

Plenty of pluck in Smuin's 'Bluegrass/Slyde'
By Mary Ellen Hunt
TIMES CORRESPONDENT

IT'S POSSIBLE that on hearing that Michael Smuin's latest work, "Bluegrass/Slyde," involves dancing with poles, your eyebrows went up at the thought -- but rest assured, it's a better concept than you might think.

Set to the Appalachian-inspired compositions of bassist Edgar Meyer -- as well pieces by the uncredited banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, fiddler Mark O'Connor and James Taylor -- "Bluegrass/Slyde" saw Smuin Ballet taking a pleasantly athletic turn on the stage at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts.

Sinatra brings out Smuin's charm

Janice Berman, Special to The Chronicle

Monday, May 15, 2006

The artlessly easy charm that his admirers have long associated with Michael Smuin didn't set in until Smuin Ballet's closing number, "Fly Me to the Moon," the Sinatra medley Smuin choreographed in 2004. At Friday night's opening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, it was the reward for a hard slog.

In "Symphony of Psalms," the premiere for the company's peripatetic spring season, 14 fine dancers took part in Smuin's mano a mano with the Igor Stravinsky chorale (recorded, with an unpleasant reverberation) that may, in fact, be undanceable.

Smuin's choreography bounces from ballet to tap in 'Bluegrass,' and swashbuckles with style in 'Zorro'

Janice Berman, Special to The Chronicle

Thursday, May 25, 2006

So what do you like? Lithe dancers in black jazz pants, whirling around red poles, or whirling Zorros, flashing their red-lined capes? In Smuin Ballet's second program of its spring season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, "Bluegrass/Slyde" and "Zorro," choreographed by Artistic Director Michael Smuin, are both delightful, froth concealing their considerable craft.

The 14 dancers have technique to burn and never seem to wilt; they look as if they're having a great time. At opening night Tuesday, the recorded music sounded about as good as it gets. This would make a great family outing, if your kids are of an age to enjoy a two-hour dance show with one intermission.

Prima ballerina ready to hang up her slippers
Mary Ellen Hunt
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

LOOKING LIKE a typically sleek, athletic ballerina, Smuin Ballet's Celia Fushille-Burke rushes apologetically into the cafe -- late for the interview because she's been working on casting changes and just gotten out of rehearsals for the company's season, which brings them this weekend to the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts.

Between pushing paper and running rehearsals, Fushille-Burke still must find time to sew her pointe shoes so she can take the stage in one of her signature roles, as Lola-Lola in "The Blue Angel."

Smuin's ballets dance across spectrum of styles
By Keith Kreitman, CONTRIBUTOR

THERE was a mixup at the opening of the Smuin Ballet's "Symphony of Psalms" at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts last week. The programs never arrived.

At first I was irritated. How would I be able to identify the dancers? Then I relented, because by not concentrating on the names and only watching the action, I realized again what a wonderfully balanced corps de ballet choreographer Michael Smuin has gathered about him.

They are all equally outstanding.

A Choreographer Making a Blithe Marriage of Movement and Sound
by JENNIFER DUNNING for the New York Times

Not everyone could perform the unintentional ballet equivalent of strippers’ pole-dancing with such sweetly determined innocence: spinning around three gleaming metal columns that did not seem to have much to do with the music.

published: August 16, 2006