A conversation with Seattle
The light seems to drip down planes that are the front and back of Andrew Bartee, at the outset of L’Effleuré. Lighting designer Michael Mazzola catches Bartee from all angles throughout the course of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s dance piece, whether “elastic technician” Bartee is soaring in a leap or sinking to his haunches in a grand plié, pulsing slightly to a rhythm like breathing or heartbeat. Continue reading A Third-Degree Slow Burn, at Whim W’Him
“I Don’t Remember A Spark” features some newer faces for the company (Lara Seefeldt, Mia Monteabaro, Sergey Kheylik), and though it’s often light-hearted, it includes an intense pas de deux between Tory Peil (who, to continue the floral theme, seems really to be blossoming in Wevers company) and Bartee. Continue reading Whim W’Him’s Back with Flowers & Shadows for a Weekend Run
This weekend only, Seattle dance fans can jeté between On the Boards and the (Intiman) Playhouse at Seattle Center, and see new works from three young rising-star choreographers: Catherine Cabeen & Company is presenting Fire! at OtB, and over on Mercer Street, Whim W’Him brings you Crave More, with works by Olivier Wevers and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Both short runs end Sunday, January 20. Continue reading Bold New Dances by Catherine Cabeen, Annabelle Ochoa & Olivier Wevers
Each piece spoke to common themes found in different contexts in each: relationship, power, identity, and intersubjectivity, if you want to get into a whole Merleau-Ponty line of investigation. […] For the audience, it’s a bit of a Rorschach — which couple did you like? Who did you want to see stick together? Continue reading Wevers / Spaeth / Byrd Dance Bill Closes a Sold-Out Run at Spectrum
Principal dancers Kaori Nakamura and Lucien Postlewaite of Pacific Northwest Ballet say that the other one is the perfect partner. Nakamura, now turned 40, is still dancing at her peak after 15 years with the company and 14 as a principal, while Postlewaite, 26, rose to principal level in a very short time from his apprenticeship in 2003. For the past several years he has been one of the company’s most luminous dancers, always beautiful to watch.
“I’ve been fortunate to have her as a partner,” says Postlewaite. “I’ve learned so much from her.”
“He’s my favorite partner, and my best friend,” says Nakamura.
But all good things come to an end, and this summer, Postlewaite is moving on. He will join Les Ballets de Monte Carlo at the end of August. He was invited to join the company as was his husband, then-PNB principal Olivier Wevers, after the performances by PNB of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Romeo et Juliette in 2008.
Wevers was getting ready to launch his own choreographic career here with his own company Whim W’Him. Postlewaite was promoted to principal that year, and says there was still a lot that he wanted to accomplish here. “I wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready. It’s not that I don’t want to dance here any more,” he continues,” but I see the move as a big growth opportunity I have to take.”
Continue reading “PNB Principal Dancers Face a Fork in The Road”
“Approaching Ecstasy,” an exuberant genre-combining production by Whim W’him, The Esoterics, and the St. Helens String Quartet at the Intiman Theatre, sets the poetry of fin de siècle gay Egyptian writer Constantine P. Cavafy to music and dance. Constantine Cavafy, who died in 1933, spent his life hiding his sexuality, but his poetry–and this performance–hold nothing back. Eric Banks translated the poetry from the original Greek into “singable” English, set the love & lust poems to music he composed, and conducted the St. Helens String Quartet. He met Whim W’him choreographer Olivier Wevers through mutual friends four years ago and proposed this project. “Approaching Ecstasy” is worth the wait. Continue reading Whim W’him, The Esoterics, and St. Helens String Quartet’s Exquisite “Approaching Ecstasy” Blends Genres, Bodies
There’s no question that Cavafy is a major poet, but his reputation had to wait until society caught up to him. Though he worked as a nondescript ministry clerk for years, Cavafy made of his poetry a treasure house of the erotic, sensual, visceral–every fleeting thing that shot through the body, he trapped not in amber but in ink, refusing (as Auden later wrote of him) “to pretend that his memories of moments of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt.” Continue reading Approaching ecstasy Pours Cavafy’s Poetry into Liquid Bones in Suits