Unutterable Originality: Pite’s ‘Emergence’ and Lang’s ‘The Calling’ at PNB

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s new repertory program at McCaw Hall turns out to be a fascinating and varied group of four ballets. Three we have seen before, but they appeared as fresh as though they had just been created, one showed off an emerging choreographer. (This program continues through November 15, and the new—to PNB—George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker ™ opens November 27.)

The title work is Crystal Pite’s Emergence, which ended the program. Indeed it would be hard to program anything after it, if only because it requires almost the entire company in a very energetic work, but also for its utter originality.

A group work, it portrays swarms of what might be insects, or bats, or primitive humans, or living organisms from outer space, an impression enhanced by the brilliant lighting of Alan Brodie. This was often dimly lit, often from or side or back, sometimes a diffused golden light, and sometimes a glaring spotlight directed along a tunnel straight at the audience with figures silhouetted as they rushed through it towards the front.

Pite’s vision has the dancers moving with sharp angularity in every joint, and the women, unusual for her, en pointe and stiff-legged. The whole is absorbing, mesmerizing, the fitting music by Owen Belton, otherworldly.

The evening started with a total opposite, Kiyon Gaines’ Sum Stravinsky. Gaines, recently retired from the company, is now on the faculty and has also been appointed resident choreographer to Ballet Arkansas. We’ve seen this work before, but it seems more polished and refined this time around. Conventional in its three movements set to Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, it has a charming sense of humor embedded in the way the dancers move, while most moves are familiar ones if not in the way they are juxtaposed.

Angelica Generosa and Benjamin Griffiths, the opening solo couple, danced with perfect synchronization and grace, Generosa as light and airy as a butterfly, Griffiths an excellent partner and dancer himself. The costumes are classical in subtly differing shades of blue, which are mirrored by the backdrop.

Perhaps as extraordinary and unusual as Pite’s Emergence is Jessica Lang’s The Calling. It’s for one dancer, standing in a pool of light, wearing a white skirt which flows to the ground and out to merge with the light. The dancer moves very slowly to anonymous twelfth-to-thirteenth-century sacred music for solo soprano, sung here by Sarra Sharif, For some time it’s for upper body and arms only, and only eventually the lower body, though the skirt moves only as gradual swirls around the legs.

It was danced opening night Friday by a new corps member, Dylan Wald, with beautiful control of the gently moving work, including crouching and rising with exquisite slow smoothness, a marvel to watch. The lighting doesn’t change, pouring down on the head of the dancer from above.

The fourth work, Signatures, was the new one, from company member Price Suddarth, his first work for the main stage though not his first work. A work for two couples and small corps, set to tonal music by local composer Barret Anspach (who included snippets from several other composers as well), Suddarth achieved a fine flow to the piece, and imaginative lifts which never looked contrived. There was perhaps rather too much of dancers walking flat-footed across the floor, but Signatures sustained interest throughout.

As always the PNB orchestra, conducted by Emil de Cou, enhanced the performance and gave support to the dancers. There seems nothing this group can’t play well.