Cross-country visits from major American ballet companies are almost always interesting. After so many pandemic cataclysms, it’s just as grateful as the logistic feat. For the first time in 6 years Pacific Northwest BalletI came from Seattle to New York in the full-scale season originally scheduled for June 2020. The company even brought an orchestra.
The engagement presented by the Joyce Theater Foundation at the David H. Koch Theater includes two mixed repertoire programs.The first of these is Thursday (following Wednesday’s special opening night Joyce Gala program), Ulysses Dub’s “Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven: Aude to Love and Loss”, Crystal Pit’s “Plot Point”. , New York premiere featured Twyla Tharp’s “Waiting at the Station”
The two and a half hour night (including two long breaks) strangely felt adversity while introducing the wonderful West Coast dancers to the New York audience. Maybe it had something to do with the sparse crowd on Thursday. Or maybe it was just a repertoire choice. Many seemed to have been chosen to enhance or brighten our collective mood, but they didn’t work.
The most arrested and emotionally resonating work came first, Ballet like a dove prayer for six dancers, To Arvo Pärt’s spacious and calm “Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten”. Created for the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1993, during the AIDS epidemic, “Dancing at the Front Door of Heaven” is a series of relationships characterized by longing within the framework of a joint ritual. I’m drawing. The pigeon died of AIDS-related complications only three years later. It’s hard to see this work without wishing I had more time with him.
Dancers (three men and three women, all white unitards) start in a circle in the center of the stage and hold hands around a bright white spotlight. They repeatedly disperse from this arrangement to other pools of light and flock there, which is their foundation.
The bells ring, while the angular poses and plunging pliers evoke their own urgent rhythm. And we see them as individuals as much as dancers reach out to each other, open their hands and shoot forward, and squeeze their brae back. At the intersection of the two corridors of light, Jonathan Batista pirouettes with breathtaking calm. Juliet Plein guarantees every move accurately, and Amanda Morgan’s long limbs bloom from her center, conveying both her freedom and dedication. After all, when they find that the dancers are in different spotlights, they are isolated, but still together.
“Plot Point” (2010) sways in another direction, a deliberately exaggerated extrapolation of film noir, whose 14 striking dancers are “real” characters and “replicas” of their shadows. It consists of a double cast. Set to a score for Bernard Herrmann’s Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (with additional sound by Owen Berton), the piece follows a scene of fierce conflict and conspiracy that may resemble stop-motion animation. The scene emphasizes horror comedy. It’s instantly entertaining and visually handsome thanks to Jay Gower Taylor’s snappy and exciting set. However, despite the winding and doubling, almost nothing seems to lie beneath the stylish surface.
Choreographed for the company in 2013, “Waiting at the Station” doubles healthier enjoyment, with colorful costumes and sets from Santrocast, and a soulful musical medley of R & B artist Allen Toussaint in the 1940s New Orleans. Will take you to Orleans. .. As you might not know without program notes, ballet is a story about his father (James Yoichi Moore) giving his son (Ku Sakuragi) a dance step before he dies. Both dancers nail their role with sophistication and charisma. Their solos and interactions are the highlights of ballet.
With lots of undulating ensemble work, even at funeral scenes, a kind of relentlessly cheerful memo “waiting” plateau. Like Dove’s work, leaning towards loss can feel more true.
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Until Sunday at David H. Koch Theater. joyce.org..
