Watch Swimmer at San Francisco Ballet, March 4 - 24.

Swimmer is based on the John Cheever short story called “The Swimmer.” It’s a book that has a great deal of meaning to choreographer Yuri Possokov, about a man who decides to return home from a pool party by swimming through all of his neighbors’ swimming pools. The passage of time in the story is surreal, so that by the time he gets home, his entire life has passed, and he must confront the outcomes of the choices he made throughout his life. Yuri wanted to reference many of the the stories and other great American works of art that meant so much to him growing up Russia, including the books “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Lolita,” the movie “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds,” and the painting by Edward Hopper, “Nighthawks.” He also wanted to include four songs by Tom Waits, which the composer of the score, Shinji Eshima wove into the 35 minute orchestral work beautifully.

I chose to use two dimensional video design to evoke the early 1950’s era of the story, and to have fun with things like floating typewriters and flying buses. I was continually amazed by Yuri’s willingness to go with these out-of-the-box ideas. I worked with Brandon McFarland who did all the animation, and we were recently laughing over email about, “how crazy that all was.” We had no idea how the ballet would be received, and so the wildly enthusiastic audience response was both a huge rush and a relief. The story has serious themes, and some friends even told me they were moved to tears at the end. Finally, Swimmer was deeply important to Yuri, as a personal expression and as a shining highlight in his wide body of work. Working on Swimmer was any odyssey in many ways for all of us, and I am thrilled it’s returning!!