A conversation with Seattle
Repertory programs traditionally don’t bring in as much audience as story ballets to companies like Pacific Northwest Ballet, but this … Continue reading PNB’s ‘Director’s Choice’ Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat
Every year, one of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s repertory programs is titled Director’s Choice, in which artistic director Peter Boal programs three … Continue reading The eclectic choices of Peter Boal
Friday night saw the opening of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s latest repertory program, works by two unusually creative choreographers, Jiri Kylian … Continue reading PNB Has Creative Imagination in Spades
On opening night, Jerome Tisserand and James Moore looked almost like tumblers, while Carla Körbes and Joshua Grant unspooled a ravishing and eerie pas de deux, underlaid by the bass harmonics of tidal suction. Continue reading In Seattle, Wheeldon’s “Tide Harmonic” Nets Waves of Applause
So what does Gibson’s new baby look like? It differs in spirit from his sleek, red, sharp Piano Dance. What we saw of this new ballet feels more courtly, using old music and recognizable steps. It feels true to Mozart: energized, elegant, clean, delighting in patterns. Continue reading After Preview of Gibson’s “Mozart Pieces,” PNB’s Men Hold Court
Where Apollo is restrained asceticism, Carmina Burana, by contrast, is on the other end of the spectrum. As the curtain opens, audience members gasped at the sight of the Seattle Choral Company suspended upstage above the stage, as set designer Ming Cho Lee’s ginormous “wheel of fortune” looms above the rest of the stage. Continue reading O Fortuna! PNB’s Pits Apollo vs. Carmina Burana at McCaw Hall
Everything is an occasion for a dance, and by the close, you are almost over-stuffed with petit pas, pas de chat, pas de bourré, grand jeté, fouetté…. You’re dizzy with pirouettes. Can they possibly be reappearing for more? The story has been long ago left behind, there is only this paroxysm of dance, building from the precisely pointed feet stepping across the stage in Act I, to the endless pirouettes and leaps of Act III’s conclusion. Continue reading At Ratmansky’s Don Quixote at PNB, the Dazzle is in the Details