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DANCE Smuin Ballet has grown up. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, since the company celebrates its 20th anniversary this November. While the troupe, now 17 strong, has always been engaged in showing what ballet can be without huge production values (and huge budgets), the company is lately doing it better than ever.Read more »

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DANCE FACT/SF's new Falling is a conceptually demanding, convincingly realized 70-minute sextet that annoys, puzzles, and ultimately persuades. Choreographer Charles Slender set his work on six beautifully-trained, well-rehearsed women. He also engaged excellent collaborators.Read more »

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DANCE Watching premieres by artists with track records is almost as satisfying as encountering pieces by those unknown to you. With the first, you wonder what else they have come with; with the second, you look for a voice that might grow to find even greater resonance.Read more »

DANCE "Next door," you are told in the packed Senegalese restaurant in the heart of the Mission. "Back there," you hear, as a hand points in a very dark, very empty bar you enter through an unmarked door. What's "back there"? It's a large space, perhaps formerly used for storage, lit by blinking Christmas tree lights and two blinding spots. You wonder what a former African dictator would have thought about a celebration of his life being created in such circumstances. Read more »

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DANCE CounterPULSE always makes a point of thanking its volunteers. One can only hope that they'll turn up en masse to help clean up after Faye Driscoll and Jesse Zaritt step off the stage this coming weekend. Their You're Me is not exactly what might be called a clean show. Still, if the work-in-progress preview, presented at the end of their residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts almost two years ago, is any indication, the mess is more than worth it. After all, most of us will recognize a mess when we see it.Read more »

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DANCE Unlike more commercially competitive markets, the Bay Area is, fortunately, still a place where young choreographers have the freedom to grow. This past weekend, two who are primarily known for dancing other people's works showed their own promising premieres.Read more »