SF Ballet’s impressive 2018 season reflects Helgi Tomasson’s aesthetic

As he prepares to launch his 33rd repertory season, Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson finds himself in a unique position in American dance. His reign over the San Francisco Ballet has been the longest of any of the major company directors who spent part of their careers as dancers at New York City Ballet in the decades before 1983, the year of ballet master George Balanchine’s death.Tomasson choreographs and teaches as well as running the company.

But, back in 1985, San Francisco Ballet’s trustees didn’t quite get what they expected from this superb dancer. They got much more. The evidence will be omnipresent over the next four months at the War Memorial Opera House. The variety of the season reflects the sensibility of the artist who planned it. What appealed to the trustees back then were Tomasson’s impeccable credentials dancing in the neoclassic style popularized by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.

But, as Tomasson reminded everyone back then, his aesthetic was also shaped by his stints in the trendier Joffrey Ballet and Harkness Ballet. He was fascinated by contemporary styles, as long as he could discern a classical base in the movement. A couple of years after his arrival, Tomasson invited the controversial William Forsythe to make the incendiary “New Sleep,” and, after that, the company’s possibilities seemed limitless. That Tomasson could see Balanchine’s influence in Forsythe’s work suggested that he discerned a continuum in late 20th century dance. And in some concrete way, this season seems to mirror Tomasson’s career trajectory.

With all that in mind, this season’s grandest project, Unbound: A Festival of New Works, seems a logical event. It’s a sequel to a landmark 2008 festival, though Tomasson has upped the commissions from 10 to 12. “I was looking for an answer to the question of what was happening with this generation of choreographers,” Tomasson said, when we talked last month. “I thought it would be interesting to bring many of them together in one place at the same time. What interests them? Where is ballet headed in our time?” Five of those choreographers will be making their San Francisco Ballet debuts, including David Dawson, Alonzo King, Cathy Marston, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Dwight Rhoden. (More on Unbound later in the season.)

During Tomasson’s time at City Ballet, the repertoire, with the exception of “Nutcracker,” didn’t offer any opportunity to perform in the full-length Tchaikovsky works, but Balanchine’s style derived from the St. Petersburg style of his youth. Within his first five years here, Tomasson had prepared two productions, with “Sleeping Beauty” bowing in 1990. (He created “Swan Lake” in 1985.) The piece has been out of the repertoire for a full decade. On its return next week (five lead couples will alternate), it won’t look quite like the audience remembers it.

Tomasson restaged his “Sleeping Beauty” for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1993, which, like our version, was designed by the late Jens Jacob Worsaae. The Copenhagen production, as I recall it, was a far more opulent affair. Tomasson has purchased from the Danes their Act 3 set and all the costumes, which, he says, are identical in design but far more elegantly constructed than the originals.

One of the aspects of Tomasson’s aesthetic that many dancers from abroad find most appealing is the inclusiveness he shows in choosing repertoire, especially the full-length ballets. That approach may have lured the acclaimed Danish dancer Ulrik Birkkjaer to San Francisco this season (“a great partner; the women love him,” says Tomasson).

The three full-length narratives we will see this year offer contrasting insights in how storytelling has evolved in dance. “Sleeping Beauty” provides a virtual textbook on Russian classicism and is organically fused with its great Tchaikovsky score. Liam Scarlett’s gothic “Frankenstein” derives from the British style, favored by Kenneth MacMillan. The ballet abounds in plot twists, subsidiary characters and corps ensembles woven (or jimmied) into the story. John Neumeier’s “Nijinsky,” which the National Ballet of Canada will import in April five years after Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet brought it here, is true dance theater, a conjectural psychodrama that won many admirers on first acquaintance.

No doubt, Tomasson’s most personal gesture this year is the 100th birthday tribute to Robbins, a program that spans three creative decades of dance making. On tour in Iceland, Robbins first saw the 17-year-old Tomasson and was so impressed he arranged a scholarship for him to the School of American Ballet, then helped him get into the Joffrey and Harkness. In Tomasson’s 15 years at New York City Ballet, he appeared in several Robbins premieres, including “Dybbuk” and “Goldberg Variations,” as well as performing in “Opus 19/The Dreamer” and “Other Dances,” both on the tribute program. He remembers Robbins’ kindness in allowing him to perform a solo from “Dances at a Gathering” at the first International Dance Competition in Moscow, where he took the silver medal to Baryshnikov’s gold.

“It was a wonderful time to be in the company,” says Tomasson. “Mr. B concentrated on steps and music, while Jerry brought such humanity to his dances.”

Only years later did Tomasson find out the part that Robbins played in his later career. “He called the board and told them they were crazy if they didn’t hire me. He truly was my guardian angel.”

Allan Ulrich is The San Francisco Chronicle’s dance correspondent.

San Francisco Ballet: Helgi Tomasson’s “The Sleeping Beauty.” Tuesday, Jan. 23-Feb. 4. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. Tickets: $30-$175. (415) 865-2000. www.sfballet.org