San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Dancers rehearse for SKETCH 9, a presentation of Amy Seiwert’s Imagery and ODC.
There are few direct parallels between ballet and NASCAR, but Amy Seiwert has found one. “People go to the races expecting a crash,” says the choreographer. “I wonder, is that what we’re building?” Through her annual Sketch choreography lab and performances, Seiwert cultivates a kind of artistic risktaking that is both anathema to the conservative art of ballet and as irresistible to audiences as a speedway.
“We’ve created a lab where people come to see the results of our experiments,” Seiwert said
during a rehearsal break at Zaccho Dance Theatre in BayviewHunters Point. The results of the ninthannual Sketch, with choreography by Seiwert, Ben NeedhamWood and Stephanie Martinez, will premiere WednesdaySaturday, July 1720, at ODC Theater. “Sometimes the show works great, but that’s not the point,” says Seiwert.
The point is to rattle choreographers’ cages, including her own. Seiwert chooses a theme — for Sketch 9, all the pieces will incorporate video projections — and invites two choreographers to create roughly 20minute pieces on the eight outstanding dancers of her indie company, Imagery. (Seiwert is in her second year as artistic director of Sacramento Ballet, but Imagery is still based in San Francisco.) The thrill of working without a net has drawn luminaries such as San Francisco Ballet’s Val Caniparoli, ODC/Dance’s KT Nelson and Axis Dance Company’s Marc Brew.
“You don’t really get the chance to make a beautiful mistake, especially in the ballet world,” Martinez said by phone. “Ballet can be a bit of a museum, and we need to foster new ways of doing things. Otherwise everything looks the same.” Her piece, “Otra Vez, Otra Vez, Otra Vez,” is inspired by Picasso’s 1903 painting “The Old Guitarist.”
“I was like, ‘What if this guy steps out of the painting? What’s behind him, where did he come from?’ ” Along with Martinez’s athletic, visceral movement and a Latin soundtrack, “Otra Vez” features video by Ben Estabrook that might double as atmospheric lighting or get mapped onto the dancers’ costumes.
As much as Seiwert may demur, the work that comes out of Sketch is consistently thoughtprovoking, memorable and even spectacular. Her 2017 Sketch piece, “Wandering,” for example, was commissioned by New York’s Joyce Theater and toured there after its S.F. premiere. Locally, Sketch’s reputation for intriguing ideas and superlative dancers has made it a mustsee, and the run has been expanded, from the usual three shows to four, to meet demand.
“We joked about NASCAR, but audiences have discovered that at Sketch, they have a frontrow seat to see someone take a risk,” says NeedhamWood. A beloved veteran dancer with Smuin Contemporary Ballet, NeedhamWood has danced in Sketch since its 2011 inaugural season. This year he is not only a debut Sketch choreographer, he is also its firstever artistic fellow, receiving two years of creative and administrative mentoring from Seiwert and Imagery’s managing director, Annika Presley.
“I’ve been learning from Amy for 10 years,” NeedhamWood says. “But budgets, event planning, shadowing Annika on grant writing — I’ve never been exposed to those conversations before. We have these perceptions, as artists, about how an ideal company should run, but when you start to see all the other components —”
Seiwert jumps in. “It’s super unsexy to work on all of this stuff,” she says. “You can be the most creative artist in the world, but you need the backbone.”
NeedhamWood is stiffening his spine for the premiere of his tentatively titled “As Her,” with music from Kishi Bashi’s debut album, “151a,” and projections cocreated with indie filmmaker Chris Correa. “He’s challenged me to look at this not in the linear way that I’m familiar with, but using that idea in film where you can cut and paste and change the flow of storytelling,” says NeedhamWood.
His own experience as a filmmaker — he’s a regional Emmy Award winner for “BaseBallet: Into the Game,” a baseballdance mashup shot on the Oracle (then AT&T) Park diamond — informs his artistry. “In postproduction, there is so much you could do to manipulate the movement through the lens,” he says. “It’s totally changed the way I look at making choreography. How will we merge Chris’ perspective as a filmmaker and mine as a choreographer? I have no idea!”
Seiwert has choreographed undulating movement to moody instrumental cuts from Ólafur Arnalds and Alice Sara Ott’s “The Chopin Project.” “I’m treating them almost as another dancer,” she says of projections designed by Olivia Ting, who has created immersive video for Lenora Lee Dance, Paufve Dance, the de Young Museum and Oakland Museum of California. “Is that thread going to carry? I won’t know until we’re in the theater, and at that point it’s too late to change. It’s a bit of a trust fall.” NeedhamWood concurs. “I told Amy this morning, I am so uncomfortable right now,” he says.
Seiwert shoots him a sly glance. “Welcome to Sketch.”