On Sunday, June 7, at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Season Encore program, a near-capacity audience bid farewell to six dancers, among them the ever-popular Kiyon Gaines, who will join the PNB School faculty after fourteen years in the company, and ballerina Carla Körbes, who in her ten years here has been one of the company’s brightest stars.
Each year she has refined details of movement more than one could think possible, so that a single arm movement can be like a flower unfolding, a foot lands feather-light after a leap which makes her seem only as weighty as that feather, her head bending gracefully to continue the movement of her body or to convey an emotion with delicacy.
All of this was evident Sunday as she danced with her frequent partner Karel Cruz an excerpt from the “Diamonds” section of Balanchine’s Jewels. It’s a partnership which has come into its own the past year or so, the long, lithe Cruz the perfect balance to her radiance. The two were also a joy to watch in the lead on the program‘s final work, Balanchine’s Serenade.
Seeing Serenade from the first tier allows one to marvel at how Balanchine used the corps and the stage to design beautiful patterns like a constantly changing kaleidoscope, all the women in the same bluish-white romantic tutus, the few men in the same color. This piece is all about the corps, and it seemed right to celebrate them as they danced with discipline—essential in this—and as superbly as ever.
Before this however, Körbes danced a solo work, Jessica Lang’s The Calling. A PNB premiere, it could have been created for her. It took place within a pool of light as she stood, her white skirt spread out widely like a morning glory flower around her. She could have been the stem of the flower, moving on the vine. It’s an unusual and lovely work requiring a dancer who can portray much feeling with just the upper body.
Serenade came at the end of the program, but earlier the audience had the chance to see each of the retirees in a solo role, Raphael Bouchard in Andrew Bartee’s Dirty Goods and Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Charles McCall and Eric Hipolito, Jr., in “Emeralds” from Jewels, while Jahna Frantziskonis sparkled with quicksilver precision and pertness in Jewels’ “Rubies.” She is one with great promise it is hard to lose.
The atmosphere of Nacho Duato’s Rassemblement is one of sadness and longing, of a culture in development from an earlier one lost. In their pas de deux from it, Gaines and Elizabeth Murphy brought out the emotions, the yearning, in strong performances which were another highlight of the evening.
As has become the custom, each retiree received a bouquet of flowers at the end of their performance. Gaines received several from a half-dozen family, friends and company members who presented them one by one onstage, showing, as did the audience, their affection for this fine dancer and human being.
At the end of Serenade, Körbes was honored by bouquet after bouquet, from designers and ballet masters, from friends, colleagues and conductors, hugging everyone, and eventually giving her bouquets to her co-principal dancers as they stood with the company behind her applauding. Confetti showered down [In fact those were rose petals, we’re told—ed.] on her from the flies and more flowers were tossed from the audience, as she took bow after bow. The audience stood and cheered her throughout in an emotional end to an evening of satisfying dance as well as goodbyes.
To tide you over, PNB offers a preview of their upcoming season.
