Smuin Contemporary Ballet ushers in its 31st season, the first led by artistic director Amy Seiwert, with a triple bill of Jennifer Archibald’s world premiere “ByCHANCE,” the company debut of Matthew Neenan’s “The Last Glass” and a revival of Seiwert’s “Renaissance.”
Although “Dance Series 1,” opening Sept. 13 in Mountain View before moving to Walnut Creek and San Francisco, marks the beginning of Seiwert’s new role, in her previous post as Smuin assistant artistic director, she and former artistic director Celia Fushille curated the program and season together.
“Around this time last year was when we really started talking about different choreographers and ballets that we thought would be good for the company, both for what’s going to artistically feed our dancers, and energize and engage the audience,” recalls Seiwert, who was Smuin’s choreographer in residence from 2008-18.
Both thought “Renaissance,” which had a successful run at New York’s Joyce Theater in July, was a logical choice for the program.
Just before that, 17-year veteran company dancer Terez Dean Orr (an original cast member in the 2019 debut of “Renaissance” who will reprise her role in the Bay Area) informed the company that she was pregnant.
“We have her covered very well, so she has permission to tap out at any time,” Seiwert says of Dean Orr, whose husband, John, is a former dancer with the company. “But she’s just dancing beautifully.”
The practicality of essentially extending an existing production wasn’t the only rationale for reviving “Renaissance.”
“From a logistical point of view, it allowed me to dive into this job with more of an administrative hat on versus if I was also trying to settle into this job and create a world premiere. Those are two very different sides of your brain that would be working very hard at the same time,” Seiwert explains. “So we put off my world premiere until the spring.”
“Renaissance” was inspired by the January 2019 “Vanitha Mathil” (“Women’s Wall”) human chain in which millions in the Indian state of Kerala demonstrated against discrimination and in favor of gender equality.
“The women and trans women stood in a line holding hands, and the men in their lives stood across from them so they were not actively in the protest but stood in support of them, which I also found quite beautiful,” Seiwert says. “What also struck me was that the largest gender equity protest in history didn’t even make a blip in the news cycle.”
“Renaissance” is set to Eastern European music by Kitka, the Oakland-based women’s choral ensemble long familiar to Seiwert, who says the singers’ powerful voices and sense of female solidarity convey a community and universal feeling of that solidarity.
Archibald’s “ByCHANCE,” which explores the power of fate and is the first premiere of the company’s new season, was inspired by the choreographer’s day-to-day life.
“Lately, I have a heightened awareness of my busy lifestyle and I am reminded that not everything is within our control,” says Archibald, the founder of Arch Dance Company in New York. “Taking a moment to stop allows you to see and take in the unexpected.”
Archibald says experimenting is part of her conversation with the dancers in “ByCHANCE.”
“As you direct with physical prompts it can lead to new breakthroughs,” she says. “Testing new strategies and approaches is a way to build phrase work that is made uniquely for the dancer that is in front of you. It’s an experience where you can dive into the unknown, and that is exciting.”
Seiwert, who has known Archibald for over a decade and has commissioned her work for other companies, finds the environment she creates special and rare in dance studios.
“Everyone is uber-present and they are very invested in that creative process with her and they very much have a voice in that creative process, so it’s a very active collaboration,” Seiwert says of Archibald’s residency. “She was the first person that came in on day one to work with the artists, and it really set a fabulous tone for them being engaged and active.”
Archibald, who has choreographed works for several companies, challenges traditional norms while respecting classical roots, which, she says, can be “ferocious and quiet” while seeking emotional expression. She found Smuin dancers to be particularly well-suited for her new opus.
“The Smuin dancers offer versatility and fluidity in the creative space,” she says. “They were able to adapt to non-traditional movement patterns on the pointe shoe, which makes the discovery process collaborative and engaging.”
“ByCHANCE,” which is set to international music by Ezio Bosso, Marie Awada, Roger Goula and Pēteris Vasks, sports striking costumes by Susan Roemer that also evoke a fluid atmosphere.
“We spoke about creating a design that embodied the blend of chance, and the invisible threads that weave our lives together,” Archibald says of her collaboration with Roemer. “I see the importance of playing with texture and edginess in my movement as well as my costumes.”
Neenan was inspired to create “The Last Glass” in 2010 after a close friend recommended that he listen to the American indie rock band Beirut.
“The minute I heard their stuff I knew I’d use it ASAP,” says Neenan, who was a dancer (1994-2007) and choreographer in residence with the Pennsylvania Ballet and co-founded the Philadelphia contemporary dance company BalletX. “Their music has an arresting rhythmic pulse and (band founder and lead vocalist) Zach Condon’s voice is intoxicating.”
Eight buoyant, world-music pop songs from Beirut’s 2007 album “The Flying Club Cup” accompany “The Last Glass.”
Martha Chamberlain’s costumes give Neenan’s dance— driven by characters struggling with life occurrences—a 1930s street parade feel. The piece is a good example of the crystallization of Neenan’s evolving choreographic style.
“In my early years my vocabulary was more balletic,” Neenan says. “After dancing and working with many contemporary choreographers it shifted. Now, I like to blend all of my experiences and give the work as much of a human approach as possible.”
Seiwert, who counts William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián and especially Michael Smuin (1938-2007)—for whom she danced in her 19-year performance career and whom she credits for having put a great deal of trust in the troupe’s dancers —as the most important influences in her choreography career. Both “ByCHANCE” and “The Last Glass” speak well to Smuin’s mission of shattering preconceptions of what ballet is.
“They are both deeply rooted in a classical ballet language but in very different ways,” Seiwert says. “Both of these pieces really explore where else that language can go.”
Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s “Dance Series 1” runs Sept. 13-15 at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts; Sept. 27-28 at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center; and Oct. 11-20 at San Francisco’s Cowell Theater. For tickets ($25-$92) call (415) 912-1899 or visit smuinballet.org.