Gala lights up dreary night
The scene: Rain no match for glittering crowd at 1st-night fundraiser
Two ballerinas strolled into a Hayes Valley nail salon on Wednesday afternoon and cheerily requested manicures and pedicures. The dancers selected stage-friendly nude-colored polish and urged the technicians to please leave their well-earned foot calluses alone. The young women were just 24 hours away from the opening of the San Francisco Ballet’s 85th season, and they wanted to be ready — as dancers and revelers. Celestial, the Ballet’s 2018 Gala theme, radiated style, world-class culture and lots of purple from City Hall on a dreary Thursday night. The annual fundraiser, which brought in $2.75 million for the organization, according to Ballet spokespeople, was a study in refined details, right down to the white linen dinner napkins embroidered with ballet slippers. “Those were done at the very last minute,” confessed event designer J. Riccardo Benavides, who worked with Gala Decor Chairwoman Catherine Bergstrom to transform City Hall’s rotunda into a star-kissed winter woods. Disco balls hung from five stories up, creating a moving
night sky as each slowly twisted and reflected light. Tables were draped in rich navy velvet and covered in candles. Guests arrived to rows and rows of candelabras that created a cathedral-esque runway inside City Hall’s lobby.
It was at the gala cocktail hour and sit-down dinner where 908 well-heeled benefactor, grand benefactor, and patron guests began the customary air-kiss and Champagne ritual, all under the watchful lens of society photographers. A four-figure full-blown gala dinner ticket is the priciest way to attend the Ballet’s opening night, and its crowd leaned heavily toward old-school San Francisco society. Flawless hair, makeup, tuxedos and gowns, several of which overflowed with ruffled skirts the size of small sedans, seemed immune to the rain pounding down outside on Van Ness Avenue.
The boldface-name attendees included Charlotte and George Shultz, Dede Wilsey, Ballet Board Chairman Carl Pascarella and his wife, Yurie, Jack Calhoun and Trent Norris, Miles Woodlief, San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer, Joel Goodrich, and acting Mayor London Breed. Dinner, a three-course affair catered by McCalls, was really just a hearty appetizer for the night’s real entree — a breathtaking performance from the Ballet’s company of unspeakably talented and athletic dancers.
Carrying umbrellas on loan from a crew of dutiful valets, dinner guests raced across the street from City Hall to the War Memorial Opera House to join more than a thousand other guests for the one-time-only medley of the ballet’s best and brightest, as selected by San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson.
“The whole idea of the gala is really building brand awareness for the Ballet,” said Gala Chairwoman Kathy Huber. In other words, the gala gets new warm bodies — often people who wouldn’t normally check out live dance performances — and introduces them to this San Francisco cultural powerhouse. Thursday night was the Ballet’s chance to show off — and it was an opportunity that it grabbed.
The curtain lifted on a charming number choreographed by Tomasson that featured adorably young students from the San Francisco Ballet School, but the show swiftly moved on to eight other pieces. Fans were treated to everything from ultrasophisticated modern dance to a sneak peek of this season’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” a ballet that debuted in 1890, and choreographer Justin Peck’s reimagining of Agnes de Mille’s 1942 “Rodeo.”
In his speech after intermission, Tomasson was most excited to invite ballet fans to “Unbound: A Collection of New Works.” The show, which will run over the course of 17 days and nights starting in April, will feature 12 world premieres from 12 choreographers from around the world. “Where do you see ballet going? What is dance now?” Tomasson asked the jampacked opera house. “We’ll see what 2018 dancing looks like. I have no doubt that San Francisco will be the epicenter of the dance world.”
If Thursday night’s mashup performance of old and new, beloved and completely fresh, was any indication, Tomasson was correct. The 2½-hour ballet performance flew by like a really good action film designed for very artsy people.
Back at City Hall, a rowdy after-party was under way with a reported 2,448 eager guests. A cover band jammed in the South Light Court while hundreds posed for Instagram-worthy photos atop the grand staircase. Especially popular were the buffet food stations, each inspired by food from the country of one of the 12 “Unbound” choreographers.
Way up high on the fourth floor of City Hall, the night’s VIP guests could see the party below. In a ballet gala first, the exclusive lounge was made available for the night’s biggest patrons and members of the ballet company. A raw sushi bar served late-night snacks against one marble City Hall wall while a long-haired DJ spun tunes nearby. “The dancers are all at that end,” one patron observed, eyeing a nearby close-knit gathering of gorgeous young people.
In the VIP lounge, at eye level with the massive disco balls, 20-year-old corps de ballet dancer Blake Kessler was settling in to the party. The Florida native, who had performed in the night’s finale of “Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes,” showed no signs that he had been dancing his heart out on stage in front of thousands of people just half an hour earlier. “I end up having more fun as this goes on,” Kessler said of the afterparty. “But right after the performance, I just wanna take a nap.”