February's Cornucopia of Dance in Seattle

The various contributors to "Break a Heart" at On the Boards. Photo by Tim Summers.

Not that plenty of interesting plays aren't opening this month (Glengarry Glen Ross at the Rep, Not a Genuine Black Man at Theatre off Jackson, and The Woman in Black at Open Circle, to name a few), but February is shaping up to be a particularly incredible month for dance in Seattle. With offerings ranging from a noted staging of a ballet classic at PNB to a world premiere by one of Seattle's up-and-coming performance groups, and a couple festival line-ups thrown in, this month presents a veritable cross-section of the best of what Seattle and the region has to offer.

Sleeping Beauty at Pacific Northwest Ballet (Feb. 4-14; tickets $25-$160). A masterpiece of Romantic ballet, with a score by Tchaikovsky, PNB's production of Sleeping Beauty is based on British choreographer Ronald Hynd's painstaking 1993 reconstruction of Marius Petipa's 1890 original. I sat in on the dress rehearsal last night, and was wowed (along with a dozen or so starry-eyed little girls) by the sumptuous production and Princess Aurora's glorious movement.

Break a Heart at On the Boards (Feb. 11-14; tickets $18). A host of Seattle choreographic talent joins forces to present an evening of movement exploring love, which is of course set opposite Valentine's Day. Break a Heart features work by Wade Madsen, Crispin Spaeth, Diana Cardiff, Kristina Dillard, ilvs strauss/Jody Kuehner, Sara Jinks and Juliet Waller Pruzan/Stephen Hando.

Chop Shop: Bodies of Work at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue (Feb. 13-14; tickets $15-$25). Organized by Eva Stone of Stone Dance Collective, Chop Shop, returning for its third year, is the east side's biggest festival of contemporary dance. Over two nights, the festival features work by some of the most prominent companies and choreographers in Seattle, including Mark Haim and Spectrum Dance, as well as smaller companies from around the region that you may never have heard of, like Peninsula Dance Theatre.

Spectrum Dance Theatre's Farewell at the Moore (Feb. 18-20; tickets $15/$25). Subtitled "A Fantastical Contemplation on America's Relationship with China," Farewell is the latest, intellectually ambitious project of Spectrum's Donald Byrd. Constructed as a diptych, Farewell explores issues of social trauma, justice, and human rights in the US and China through the lenses of Tiananmen Square and Sept. 11, respectively.

The Soft Rock Kid at ACT Theatre (Feb. 19-27; tickets $20). Mark Siano and his Freedom Dancers have become the darlings of Seattle's cabaret scene with their brilliant evocation of the cheesy excesses of Eighties soft rock, and this month they present their biggest show to date: a riff on The Karate Kid presented at ACT's Falls Theatre.

Salt Horse Performance's Man on the Beach at Erickson Theatre (Feb. 26-March 6; tickets $12/$15). Founded as a continent hopping company in 2005 by dancers/choreographers Corrie Befort and Beth Graczyk along with musician Angelina Beldoz, Salt Horse has emerged as one of Seattle's most exciting young performance groups. Originally presented at On the Boards as part of the 2009 Northwest New Works Festival, Salt Horse has developed Man on the Beach into an evening length piece.