San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Toughest job in the show: being Nana’s legs
Ismael Acosta, who dances with Earth Circus Productions and Ballet22, considers himself an expert in partnering. But his duties take on a whole new level of challenge this time of year, when he plays the lower half of Nana, the 10-foot-tall, two-dancerhigh disciplinarian who lords over the nursery in “The Velveteen Rabbit,” ODC/Dance’s annual production bringing the classic Margery Williams story to life every holiday season.
“When the dancer on top wants me to stop, she squeezes her legs tight around my neck,” Acosta, 37, explains. “When she wants me to go to the right she taps her foot on my left side, like riding a horse.”
The partnering method was invented by ODC Artistic Associate KT Nelson when she choreographed “The Velveteen Rabbit” in 1986, and though it’s effective, the role comes with other perils.
“You have a little window in the front of the skirt (covering you) and normally you can see well in rehearsals, but once you get onstage, there’s a lot of lighting that hits the front of the fabric and makes everything blurry,” Acosta says. “You have to get into your muscle memory and use a lot of the marks on the floor.”
Acosta, who stands at 6foot-2, has danced “Nana bottom” at least five seasons (he admits, he’s lost count). ArVejon Jones, who alternates in the role, has even more experience, having first danced Nana in 2012, but still has to take care with extra core exercises to make it through the season.
“The extra weight up top is constantly throwing off your equilibrium and putting more pressure on your pelvis to stabilize everything,” Jones, 33, says.
Fortunately, Acosta notes, the company keeps a physical therapist/masseuse on hand backstage.
“One year, my back just snapped in the middle of the show and I wasn’t sure I could move. I was freaking out,” he recalled. “Then the masseuse gave me a little snap and I was good to go.”
Though maintaining physical health is a paramount concern, both Acosta and Jones find “Nana bottom” an artistically rich experience.
“The music (by Benjamin Britten) is beautiful,” says Jones, who can also be seen performing with Janice Garrett + Dancers, teaching on
“The Velveteen Rabbit”:
ODC/Dance. 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 26-27, and Dec. 3-4 and 10-11; 11 a.m. Dec. 1-2 and 8-9. $15-$100. Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, 700 Howard St., S.F. 415-978-2787. www.odc.dance
faculty at San Francisco State University and coaching movement for the AfricanAmerican Shakespeare Company. “In the scene of Nana carrying the candle, I try to hit all the little percussive musical cues. I’m definitely thinking about the music the whole time, trying to be expressive in the lower body.”
Acosta, for his part, gets swept up in the story, in which a toy rabbit learns what it means to be “real” — that is, to be loved, which also brings pain.
“It’s dramatic at the end when they’re going to incinerate the rabbit and Nana is making gestures to say ‘burn him!’ ” Acosta says. “I tend to be intense there and I make my gestures more powerful, even though I’m just using my feet and legs. I like to get wild sometimes and put in an extra turn.”
Perhaps, like the toys in the story, these hardworking dancers have learned what it is to be “real.” As Jones says, “The thing that keeps me doing it is the kids watching this show. As a teacher, I think it’s really important to remember who we’re dancing for.”