Cover image: Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Elizabeth Murphy and Karel Cruz in Benjamin Millepied’s “Appassionata” (Photo © Angela Sterling)
June is always the season for weddings and it seemed fitting that the last repertory program this season from Pacific Northwest Ballet celebrates couples, in a program called “Love and Ballet.” Opening Friday and running for ten days, the show includes four contemporary works, with no ballerinas in sparkling tutus and cavaliers in white tights and embroidered velvet (delightful as those are to see), but which are equally absorbing pieces showcasing company talent in imaginative movement.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Rachel Foster and James Moore in Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain” pas de deux (Photo © Angela Sterling)
The oldest work on the program, all of 13 years old, is Christopher Wheeldon’s pas de deux from his longer work “After the Rain.” Mesmerizing to watch and supremely difficult to dance well, Friday’s performance saw James Moore and Rachel Foster take it on. It’s a dreamily slow unfolding of movement against a soft lighted backdrop like dawn, to music by Arvo Pärt which itself felt like the gentle dripping after rain, played by pianist Christina Siemens and violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim.
Watching Moore and Foster as their movements flowed seamlessly one into another: arms, then hands, then fingers expressively developing the shape, or legs and torsos doing the same, led the viewer to step back mentally long enough to recognize the physical strength and control needed to do this. It is not just the apparent effortless lifting of a ballerina on the one hand, but her poise as well: to be held aloft in poses hard enough on the floor but amazing when supported solely by two hands or maybe a shoulder.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Sarah Ricard Orza with soloist Joshua Grant in Christopher Wheeldon’s “Tide Harmonic” (Photo © Angela Sterling)
The evening started with another Wheeldon work, this one created for PNB five years ago. “Tide Harmonic” is set to music of Joby Talbot which itself is the force behind the dance, the force and energy of water moving unceasingly.
Four couples in blue, with the women in leotards and a side of floating chiffon, slightly reminiscent of seaweed or maybe a mermaid’s tail, keep a continuous flow of movement which feels as fluid as the water it emulates. The central solo pas de deux of Joshua Grant and Sarah Ricard Orza was a model of fine partnering, while the lighting varied from shades of Mediterranean blue to the murkier feel of deeper blue-green water, achieved by Randall G Chiarelli.
Benjamin Millepied’s “Appassionata” to Beethoven’s sonata of that name with Allan Dameron at the piano, had three couples dancing together, switching partners throughout though with Elizabeth Murphy and Karel Cruz as the lead. To begin with the couples wore purple, red or blue, but for the second movement they changed to what appeared to be white, blue or grey pajamas and shorty nighties, the women with their hair down. The nighties felt like an unfortunate choice. Free flowing, they obscured the body lines of the dancers. Cruz and Murphy made another pair of model partnering, beautifully synchronized and musical in their movement.
Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Justin Peck’s “Year of the Rabbit” (Photo © Angela Sterling)
Last on the program came Justin Peck’s “Year of the Rabbit,” in which short sections symbolizing different zodiac signs flowed one into another. Since one couldn’t read programs with lights down it was hard to work out which sign was being represented at any one time, except for the first, where Angelica Generosa pawed the ground as an ox might.
The standout effect of this ballet is the way Peck uses the corps dancers, twelve plus six soloists, to create kaleidoscopic effects. It opens with what might see through a kaleidoscope, a marvelous still arrangement of bodies and arms close together, which then breaks up and moves as one turns a kaleidoscope until the bodies come together in another extraordinary still. All wore matching costumes in the same blue and white which added to the effect. Dancers Generosa, Noelani Pantastico, and Margaret Mullin with Jerome Tisserand, Seth Orza, and Matthew Renko took turns as the soloists and couples though this fast-moving work.
As often, Pantastico stood out for her grace and the musical way she moves, with Generosa another in the same vein. This repertory is the last for Cruz, who retires at the top of his powers after the Encore program next weekend. He’s one who took time to manage his long arms and legs but who has never stopped growing as a dancer in his sixteen years with PNB.