the san francisco ballet school required all its summer students to attend the free outdoor dance performance of its company at stern grove, an outside venue donated to the city in 1931 by a local philanthropist.
it's an incredibly beauitful place with groves of eucalyptus trees planted in the 1840's and a ground cover of nasturtium.
the grove was selected as it has good acoustics. of course we still use speakers in these days!
we were there at 10:30 am. the concert started at 2 pm so we had lots of time to read. this was fine, but we were sitting on stone and our bottoms became numb and our legs and feet would go to sleep. of course, we did have really good seats so it was worth it.
it was a wonderful performance, featuring several dancers we knew such as sofiane sylve whom chanda has had for a teacher in two past summer intensives. she did a balanchine piece, agon, with music by stravinsky. the company also performed concerto grosso, choreographed by helgi tomasson (artistic director of the company) for five men; a paul taylor piece danced by joseph walsh who's bulldog orson's instagram account i follow (!); and christopher wheeldon's within the golden hour, which was chanda's favorite. i loved it also, but my favorite of the day was sofiane sylve in the balanchine piece.
it was a big crowd!
there were some elaborate picnics.
the trees are just so . . spectocolare!
and the surrounding neighborhood is . . picturesque . . quaint . . pretty . . etc . . i think i'm growing tired of trying to find superlatives . .
we passed a local waldorf school with an unusual garden . .
and these streets never cease to amaze me . .
chanda found a local cafe on her phone (of course) with a much needed restroom (the key is on the giant spoon) . .
and food . .
the greenhouse cafe . .
heading to the bus stop . .
i'm standing at the bus stop . . . it was the number 23 which took us directly to our neighorhood in twenty minutes . .
