PNB’s Two-Part Jerome Robbins Fest is Two Times the ‘Sheer Delight’

Cover image: Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Miles Pertl with company dancers in Jerome Robbins’ The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody), which PNB is presenting as part of a two-part Robbins Festival (Photo © Angela Sterling)

It was a new venture at Pacific Northwest Ballet to open the season with a centennial celebration, that of choreographer, dancer, actor, director, and stager of musicals Jerome Robbins, an all-round brilliant man of the arts.  It was his major contribution to ballet choreography which was honored with a festival this past weekend (and continuing through Sept 29th) with two programs of seven of his seminal works. One of these, Other Dances, is new to PNB, but all the others have been in the repertory here and performed by the company in the past 13 years.

Needless to say, the performances highlighted many of the company’s finest dancers, but the focus and the emphasis was on Robbins first and last. Circus Polka was originally choreographed as a very short work by Balanchine titled 50 Elephants and 50 Beautiful Girls for Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus with music by Stravinsky, and Robbins later rechoreographed it for 48 little girls—no elephants—who follow the directive whip of a ringmaster. It’s a perennial crowd-pleaser, not least on both Friday and Saturday nights when three groups of sixteen little girls from the PNB school ranging in size from small to smaller and then tiny danced onto the stage — with PNB artistic director Peter Boal as Ringmaster Friday and a guest appearance by much loved retired PNB dancer Ariana Lallone on Saturday.

Four very different works completed Friday’s program: two accompanied by Chopin piano solos, the other two with orchestra. Pianist Cameron Grant played for In the Night’s three couples, who portrayed new love, mature love, and passionate love. While new principal Leta Biasucci showed off her increasingly expressive arm work with excellent partner Benjamin Griffiths, it was Noelani Pantastico with Jerome Tisserand as the “passionate” pair who took the breath away.

Everything Pantastico does is imbued with lightness and clarity but at the same time she includes an emotional expression which may be only a slight turn of the head, a tiny change in stance, a smile, which says volumes for who or what she is portraying. She works to the strengths of her partners so that they also are at their absolute best when dancing with her. These attributes came through in everything she danced both Friday and Saturday.

In Other Dances, which Robbins choreographed for two dancers to more of his favorite Chopin (played by pianist Mark Salman), Pantastico was partnered with Seth Orza, perhaps the closest the company has to a danseur noble. It was hard to take eyes off them both dancing together and separately. Pantastico seemed in one variation to be full of artless, girlish enjoyment, in another a little downcast, then at times flirtatious, while Orza showed off strength, musicianship, and split-second timing in a very tricky variation, while the two danced as one when together.

In between these two, the totally different Afternoon of a Faun (to Debussy’s music of the same name) has actually nothing to do with fauns, taking pace in a ballet studio where dancer James Moore woke from a sleep on the floor, to rise and practice, always looking at the audience as though it was the studio mirror. Rachel Foster, thinking the studio empty, also came to practice, and the two ended up practicing together, until she left and he sank back to rest on the floor. Moore’s smooth and effortless movement, his grace, riveted the eye as he danced. It was a joy to watch.

The Friday program ended with West Side Story Suite, showing off a completely different side to Robbins’ work. No point shoes or tights here: sneakers and jeans for the guys, heels and short skirts for the girls, and tension between rival gangs. This has vignettes from the musical, including the first meeting between Tony and Maria, the rivalry between Jets and Sharks, and the rumble. Shining here was the leader of the Jets, Ezra Thompson, whose fast footwork, speed of movement and menacing aura were all too believable. Lindsi Dec was memorable as Anita, the sassy girlfriend of the Sharks’ leader Bernardo.

Saturday night had only two longer works beside Circus Polka: Dances at a Gathering, considered perhaps the pinnacle of Robbins’ work, and his funniest piece, The Concert (or The Perils of Everybody), where an onstage pianist plays and the attendees act out what they think of as they listen.

The hour-long Dances has ten dancers, five men and five women in different subtle colors dancing sometimes as partners, sometimes not, in groups of different sizes. About eighteen different Chopin pieces, mostly mazurkas and waltzes played one after another with rarely a pause comprise the music, and were undertaken in a tour de force by company pianist Christina Siemens, who not only had to watch the score but tailor her playing to the requirements of each dancer. She received deservedly warm applause at the end.

The steps are completely classical, though sometimes there is a flexed foot or a shoulder shrug, just enough to give a little spice to what is already a completely absorbing work. Here again, Pantastico shone, but Sarah Ricard Orza also danced with exquisite nuance and shape, while Seth Orza continued his very fine work and Lucien Postlewaite, another who draws all eyes on stage, was at his best.

In The Concert, Ryan Cardea was a hoot, complete with cigar jutting out of his mouth no matter what he was doing—such as bored, hen-pecked husband, as were Lesley Rausch as the over-the-top groupie and Lindsi Dec as the imperious tryer-on of hats, plus the crew with umbrellas, or butterfly wings or on parade. All of this went on to the apparently impervious and concentrating playing of pianist Cameron Grant—until the very end when he leapt from the piano stool, unfurled a large butterfly net and unsuccessfully tried to catch one as the curtain went down.

Sheer delight, all of it, both nights.