Anita Paciotti rehearses an S.F. Ballet “Nutcracker” dancer.
During rehearsals for San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” Anita Paciotti’s feedback is both laser-focused and mirthfully imaginative. “Don’t go on the mouse, go after the fourth mouse,” says the ballet master and principal character dancer. She is coaching four San Francisco Ballet School students, age 12 to 15, who hope to land the lead role of Clara. “More! More shock!” Paciotti urges during a dramatic moment.
The aspiring ballerinas would do well to take Paciotti’s advice. Now entering her 50th season with the Ballet, Paciotti, 68, has been one of its star dramatists since she joined as a teenager herself. “It just seems to be natural with Anita,” says fellow ballet master Betsy Erickson, a 45-year Ballet veteran and Paciotti’s best friend. “How do you teach that?”
Paciotti has her ways. And although Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson choreographed the current production, which opens on Wednesday, Dec. 13, he relies on Paciotti to bring much of it to life every year. Along with coaching Clara, she stages the party scene, dancing dolls, Mother Ginger and the Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russian variations. (Erickson stages other parts of the ballet, and Jeffrey Lyons of the school masterminds the mouse battle.)
Clara is one of the few roles not in Paciotti’s unique repertoire, which ranges from the coquette Lise in “La Fille mal gardée” to the Bearded Lady in Lew Christensen’s “Jinx” to the evil fairy Carabosse in “The Sleeping Beauty.” Among her earliest roles were Arabian in “The Nutcracker” and the Drunk Girl in Christensen’s “Filling Station,” famously danced by Jocelyn Vollmar; among her most recent was the stern housekeeper, Madam Moritz, in “Frankenstein” last season.
Ask Paciotti about her onstage magic, and she demurs. “I just did what I thought (Vollmar) was doing.” How did Paciotti become the Ballet’s leading character actress? “I was not a classical ballerina type,” she says, “but I fit in in other ways.”
Others describe her artistry more effusively. “Oh, she was good,” Tomasson says of her Carabosse. “The meanness and conniving, it all came through. And yet, when she does the Nurse in ‘Romeo & Juliet,’ she can be so touching and expressive with a minimal gesture.”
“I loved dancing with her,” says Val Caniparoli, who joined the school in 1972 and the company the following year. They were frequent partners in ballets like George Balanchine’s “Serenade” and quirky pieces like John McFall’s 1978 “We, the Clown” — they each were cast and danced in alternating performances.
“I think we wore the same costume,” Caniparoli says. “There’s a couple of pictures of us — we even have the same expression.”
San Francisco Ballet was a different world when Paciotti joined. Willam Christensen was artistic director, and with around 40 dancers, it was about half its current size. “We thought touring was going on a bus to Oceanside and performing in a gymnasium,” Paciotti quips. (Michael Smuin became co-director in 1973, and Tomasson took the helm in 1985 and named Paciotti principal character dancer in 1987.)
Paciotti describes her hiring with similar nonchalance. After early training in her hometown of San Leandro, she joined Oakland Ballet at 13 and danced on the side while studying drama at UC Berkeley. One day she tagged along with an acquaintance who was in the San Francisco Ballet. “They said, ‘As long as
you’re here, you can take class,’ ” Paciotti says. “Then, ‘You can come back for a few days.’ After that they said, ‘We’d like to offer you a contract.’ ” She left Cal and never looked back.
Over the years the company grew exponentially, and along with it Paciotti’s career and her life. She met her husband, Russell Murphy, when he danced with the company; they’re both OK that their two sons chose other professions. Paciotti evolved into an expert ballet master, responsible for documenting new ballets by choreographers like Christopher Wheeldon and coaching dancers in learning their roles.
Her perceptive intelligence and respectful guidance has influenced some of the company’s great ballerinas. In Joanna Berman’s 2000 farewell performance of “Giselle,” the close friends shared the stage. “I’m Giselle and she’s my mom, but really there’s a lot more going on,” Berman says. “It wasn’t just two characters. It was us having a real relationship. That was really, really special.”
“She gives me faith to discover a role,” says principal dancer Frances Chung. “She doesn’t have a lot to say, but the few things she does say, it takes a role to the next level.”
Back in the studio, Paciotti is more outspoken, but just as kind, with the aspiring Claras. “It takes a really special gift to get (the Claras) to get over stage fright, to expand their movements,” says Erickson. Paciotti encourages them to create their own backstories for their character, just as she puts herself into the roles she plays. “If you believe it, it’s good,” she tells them as they feign fighting with little brother Fritz or meeting the dashing Prince. “I’m just making it up,” she says. “You can do that too.”
Claudia Bauer is a Bay Area freelance writer.