#Tiit Helimets

[dance-world]

Tiit Helimets

[gorbigorbi]

Sarah Van Patten as Tatyana Larina and Tiit Helimets as Prince Gremin, "Onegin", choreo by John Cranko, based on the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" by Aleksandr Pushkin, music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Kurt Heinz Stolze, set and costume by Santo Loquasto, San Francisco Ballet, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, California, USA

Photographer Erik Tomasson

[patricedumonde]

You know what’s an underrated ballet school in the US? Bayer Ballet Academy.

Tiit Helimets’ daughter currently goes there and I think she has good technique and stage presence. Not just tricks, promise. 😊

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Sasha de Sola and Tiit Helimets in Diamonds.

[swanlake1998]

yuan yuan tan and tiit helimets photographed performing in helgi tomasson's prism by erik tomasson

[lovelyballetandmore]

Tiit Helimets | San Francisco Ballet | Photo by Erik Tomasson

[galina-ulanova]

Yuan Yuan Tan [1], Vito Mazzeo [1], Sofiane Sylve [2] and Tiit Helimets [2] in Edwaard Liang’s Symphonic Dances (San Francisco Ballet, 2012)

[books0977]

Mathilde Froustey and Tiit Helimets in Tomasson’s 7 For Eight, San Francisco Ballet, January 2016. © Erik Tomasson.

Tracing Balanchinean shapes in soft lines, it expands on classical vocabulary with flowing transitions, torqued épaulement and far-reaching lunges and extensions. Tiit Helimets and Mathilde Froustey were a potent match in the spotlit opening adagio; they match well with their long limbs and cool affect.

[tybe]

SF Ballet 2016-2017 Season

I haven’t been blogging or doing much writing in months, much less about ballet -- and a consequence that I’ve noticed is that the dances, one of the most ephemeral works of all art, have generally faded from my memory, and not necessarily because the performances were forgettable, but because my mind has become so much more sieve-like because of the increased commitments of my life. So consider this my effort to recapture the emotional aroma of the past season.

Program 1: Haffner Symphony / Fragile Vessels / In the Countenance of Kings

I don’t remember much of Helgi Tomasson’s “Haffner Symphony” -- I’m assuming it was mostly neo-classical, though. "Fragile Vessels” (by Jiří Bubeníček (or Jiri Bubenicek, for an easier search)), though, was a season-highlight, as it’s in the same athletic contemporary vein as Ashley Page’s “Guide to Strange Places.” That night, Sofiane Sylve was featured, and I was overwhelmingly smitten with her extensions and the exquisite delicacy of her port de bras -- she’s quickly become my favorite dancer. I was disappointed with Justin Peck’s “In the Countenance of Kings,” in part because of the Sufjan soundtrack (I swear I heard parts that sounded like they were from Seven Swans, so either it was a mixed soundtrack or Sufjan’s been repeating himself). However, one passage moved me in which the female dancers were redirected in mid-jump by their male partners. I’m at a loss to explain why I found it so breathtaking -- maybe it was the pure physicality of the maneuver. 

Program 3: Frankenstein

Loud and brash as it is, I haven’t had much difficulty remembering Liam Scarlett’s “Frankenstein,” which was also the first full-length ballet that I’ve seen (full-length ballets tend to be from the classical era, which, no thanks). The first act is the least of its three, since it focuses on Victor, who is such a joyless wet blanket that I had little sympathy for his early travails. “Frankenstein” doesn’t come alive until the Creature does (see what I did there?), right at the end of Act 1, and on through the rest of the ballet. The Creature has all the exhilarating, virtuosic solos, and the night that I saw it, Wei Wang performed the part, which he devoured. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that SF Ballet separates itself from other American ballet companies by how much it showcases its male dancers -- a notion I finally understood thanks to Wei’s voracious performance. A more thorough review here.

Program 5: Fusion / Salome / Fearful Symmetries

Of the programs that I went to this season, program 5 was easily my least favorite. I was drawn to this program by the description of Arthur Pita as the “David Lynch of dance” -- self-described, natch. His retelling of “Salome” formally emulates Lynch -- inscrutable voyeurs, tawdry wealth, mysterious forested setting, limos -- but with little of Lynch’s subterranean bourgeois dread  that erupts with sudden paroxysms of horror. An empty shell of unease, in short.

“Fusion” was too genteel for me (and the specter of Orientalism hung in my mind the moment I saw the dervishes), and the only thing I took from “Fearful Symmetries” is that it was the first time I liked a John Adams composition.

Program 7: Trio / Ghost in the Machine / Within the Golden Hour

My favorite program in quite some time. Tomasson’s “Trio” has classical settings, costumes, and orchestration (Tchaikovsky!), but with distinctly contemporary movement (bent knees, flexed feet). The ensemble work was notably sharp this entire night, but the first and last movements of “Trio” were the most uniform. The second movement is mostly a pas de deux (this night featuring Sarah Van Patten, she of the most crystalline blue eyes, with Tiit Helimets), and I surprised myself by embracing its overt romanticism. Was I in a sentimental mood that night? Or was chemistry between the two dancers that potent? The introduction of the third partner (Death, according to the program notes) was less effective, Interrupting the beautiful coziness between the couple (as Death is wont to do), Death’s impersonal and cold partnering with Sarah was less dynamic than the partnering between her and Tiit. Surely that’s the point, but this characterization felt more academic than artistic. 

The third movement showed off the men -- Angelo Greco particularly impressed -- but the solos were less of a success. I did appreciate the use of negative space in the music during Maria Kochetkova’s solo, namely the use of the 8s (or 6s if the music was in waltz time) to prepare for the next phrase.

Finally (and I’m still talking about “Trio”!), I have to mention Lorena Feijoo, who is retiring after this season. Her bows at the end were clearly deeply felt -- she received a long standing ovation -- and her visible emotion filled the entire house. This memory I won’t want to forget.

Myles Thatcher’s “Ghost in the Machine” starts in a diegetically confrontational move, and the lustiness with which the dancers attacked the choreography throughout immediately drew me in. In one of the early passages, (I don’t think I’ve seen so many hunched shoulders in a ballet before, but, hey, contemporary.) Thatcher even quotes Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces” with a line of disinterested dancers-cum-pedestrians crossing the stage (a staging for which I’ll always be a sucker) and around the actual dancing. Sasha De Sola is featured -- one of the most lasting images is when she stands at the center of a veritable pieta of hugs which unfurls into a tableau of Botticelli’s Venus -- but for me the star was Dores Andre. She commanded the stage the sheer intensity of her will, and managed to wring a few tears out of me in the process.

Thatcher breaks the aggression of the piece with one quick sketch that brings levity, culminating with two dancers rearranging their ragdoll compatriots to slump against each other.

The finale, alas, lacks the urgency of the preceding choreography. It ends on what I took to be an overly optimistic note that also was tinged with triumphalism (rarely a good thing, in my estimation), but as a whole, “Ghost in the Machine” marked a point where I realized that my love for contemporary ballet comes from its sensuality -- not in the pedestrian, sexy sense, but in the palpability of the partnering (a vestige of my lindy hop days?). (”Trio” also is a fine example of tactile partnering.) I remember Sonya Tayeh saying that she loves seeing bodies dancing against each other, and that’s probably a more direct way of putting it.

I was probably crashing from the adrenaline rush of “Ghost” when “Within the Golden Hour” began, and I couldn’t appreciate Wheeldon’s sedate, markedly less pyrotechnic choreography,  But God! That closing image! 

[iwontdancenetwork]

San Francisco Ballet | 7 for Eight | Excerpt 

“George Balanchine gave me advice about choreographing: You have to love the music—that’s half the battle,” says Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, whose poetic 7 for Eight is set to Bach keyboard concertos.

“Bach is timeless.” The opening pas de deux of 7 for Eight, danced here by Yuan Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets, unfolds in a pool of light. “I started with an adagio because I felt it immediately set the stage for what Bach is all about,” explains Tomasson.

[dance-world]

Tiit Helimets - photo by Quinn Wharton

[gorbigorbi]

Yuan Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets, "Prism" (dress rehearsal), choreography by Helgi Tomasson, music by Ludwig van Beethoven, costume by Martin Pakledinaz and Barbara Matera. As part of “Program 6”, San Francisco Ballet, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, California, US

Photographer Erik Tomasson

[balletroyale]

Giselle: Act I vs. Act II

Mathilde Froustey and Tiit Helimets (San Francisco Ballet)

[swanlake1998]

yuan yuan tan and tiit helimets photographed performing as odette/odile and prince siegfried in swan lake by erik tomasson

[lovelyballetandmore]

Tiit Helimets | San Francisco Ballet | Photo by Oliver Endahl (balletzaida.com)

[galina-ulanova]

Tiit Helimets and Jennifer Stahl in Val Caniparoli's Foreshadow (San Francisco Ballet, 2020)