Free Falling, Or Dance Your Troubles Away

One play from being ranked the #1 team in the country, to out of the Top 25 in three short weeks. Yes folks, that’s the California Golden Bears. I hope they can pull out of this and salvage the season, and think that they will. But it will remain frustrating, because the table was set this year for heights they had never reached, and we may not see another season like this one for some time. Give Dennis Erickson a lot of credit – he may have been a failure as a professional coach, but the guy obviously knows how to get everything that’s possible to get out of a team in college. A lot like Pete Carroll, now that you mention it.

It was just as well that I missed last night’s game, because the lost opportunities and blown lead would have just made me angry. Instead, Debra and I were at the season premiere of The Sacramento Ballet, Artistic Director Ron Cunningham’s twentieth season and our 21st or 22nd (not exactly sure when we started going, but I know it was pre-Cunningham.). The company has moved forwards in leaps and bounds (so to speak) under Cunningham, and the only real downside is that, for the most part, the music is recorded.

Last night’s program consisted of Serenade, by Balanchine with music by Tchaikovsky. It is probably heresy for me to say something like this, but I find most of Balanchine’s works to be technically brilliant, but emotionally bereft. They just don’t do that much for me. The featured dance was a new piece by Cunningham, A Woman’s Journey: The Tamsen Donner Story. It was danced wonderfully, but it’s an odd choice of subject to build a dance around. The closer was Fluctuating Hemlines, one of the staples of their repertory, and always incredibly fun to watch. It’s a light piece, more modern dance than classical ballet, organized around the percussion of Tigger Benford. Good way to end the night, and then we wandered through the Halloween revelers to get back to our car, which reminded me why I never enjoyed dressing up in costume. I like the holiday, but just not as a participant.