The San Francisco Ballet puts together an evening of altered states in Program 3 of its 2015 season. William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude is his great homage to classicism. Danced to the music of Franz Schubert, Forsythe's piece features two men and three women who exaggerate the trappings of ballet — tutus that eschew tulle for pancake-flat rims of bright green, legs that fly at warp speed, transitions that treat the training of epaulement like a test of reflexes. Only 11 minutes in length, this ballet has been known to make grown ballerinas cry. In the same program is the plotless gem The Kingdom of the Shades, from Act II of La Bayadère. The opium dream of the remorseful Solor, whose beloved Nikiya has perished from a snakebite, the ballet brings repetition and hallucination into sublime harmony as 24 shades, or ghosts, glide down a ramp and into perfect classical formations.
The San Francisco Ballet presents Program 3 at 8 p.m. today through March 7 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. $22-$345; sfballet.org.
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