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Celebrate Seattle Festival
Apr. 19th, 2007 04:09 pmThe Pacific Northwest Ballet is presenting fourteen works during the course of the three week long Celebrate Seattle festival- as many as some companies do in an entire calendar year. The festival opened with a two-week run featuring the Mark Morris-choreographed Pacific and a staging of Kent Stowell's take on Carmina Burana, which closed Sunday.
The remaining twelve pieces are each being staged two or three times in the course of three programmes. Last night, the company welcomed two sets of guests- from Vancouver, Ballet British Columbia; and from across town, Spectrum Dance Theatre.
The evening opened with Schubert, a John Alleyne-choreographed piece built on Jean Orr, set to the first three movements of Franz Schubert's Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major. Ballet British Columbia is a small company, comprised of fifteen dancers, nine of whom are featured in this work. Alleyne describes this work as a look at a dancer reaching the pinnacle of her career, bidding farewell in her final season, and looking back through the looking-glass of memory and reminiscence. It draws on the contemporary vernacular while remaining clean and graceful within the lines of ballet as dance, paying tribute to the classical stylings without being bound to the constraints of tradition, but rather innovating as an extension on the form. It was a lovely and expressive piece.
Ripple Mechanics choreographed by Sonia Dawkins, and set to music including Nina Simone's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and Jacqueline Fuentes "Sinuso Tropico", was originally commissioned in 2005 by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and shows Dawkins' versatility while acknowledging some of the artists who have had significant influences on her style- the dance is particularly reminiscent of both Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham. Both the dance and the music selected for it portray images of living life to its fullest in appreciating the high points as well as the mournful losses. If anything, this piece was handicapped in its brevity, and left a sense that it could have just as easily fit in as a section of a story ballet as easily as it stood on its own.
As a strong, pre-intermission performance, Ripple Mechanics may have overshadowed the third work on the bill, Toni Pimble's Two's Company pas de trois, set to Dvorák's String Quartet in F Major. This piece seems to have been intended as a tribute to the retiring Patricia Barker, and was intricately presented, but failed to make the emotional resonance that it may have if presented apart from Ripple Mechanics.
The evening concluded with Donald Byrd's Bhangra Fever, presented by his Spectrum Dance Theatre; a significant departure from ballet. This work is decidedly modern dance, warp and weft. Although the longest piece of the evening's performance, it moved compellingly to East Indian dance music combining traditional elements with contemporary beats, and was intricate in both design and presentation.
[On a personal note, which deviates from the journalistic narrative above, i could appreciate this much in the same way as i can much modern art- i recognize artistry within it, but fail to grasp enough of the 'vernacular' (if that's the proper way to put it) and structure to really enjoy it the same way as ballet.
The remaining twelve pieces are each being staged two or three times in the course of three programmes. Last night, the company welcomed two sets of guests- from Vancouver, Ballet British Columbia; and from across town, Spectrum Dance Theatre.
The evening opened with Schubert, a John Alleyne-choreographed piece built on Jean Orr, set to the first three movements of Franz Schubert's Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major. Ballet British Columbia is a small company, comprised of fifteen dancers, nine of whom are featured in this work. Alleyne describes this work as a look at a dancer reaching the pinnacle of her career, bidding farewell in her final season, and looking back through the looking-glass of memory and reminiscence. It draws on the contemporary vernacular while remaining clean and graceful within the lines of ballet as dance, paying tribute to the classical stylings without being bound to the constraints of tradition, but rather innovating as an extension on the form. It was a lovely and expressive piece.
Ripple Mechanics choreographed by Sonia Dawkins, and set to music including Nina Simone's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and Jacqueline Fuentes "Sinuso Tropico", was originally commissioned in 2005 by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and shows Dawkins' versatility while acknowledging some of the artists who have had significant influences on her style- the dance is particularly reminiscent of both Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham. Both the dance and the music selected for it portray images of living life to its fullest in appreciating the high points as well as the mournful losses. If anything, this piece was handicapped in its brevity, and left a sense that it could have just as easily fit in as a section of a story ballet as easily as it stood on its own.
As a strong, pre-intermission performance, Ripple Mechanics may have overshadowed the third work on the bill, Toni Pimble's Two's Company pas de trois, set to Dvorák's String Quartet in F Major. This piece seems to have been intended as a tribute to the retiring Patricia Barker, and was intricately presented, but failed to make the emotional resonance that it may have if presented apart from Ripple Mechanics.
The evening concluded with Donald Byrd's Bhangra Fever, presented by his Spectrum Dance Theatre; a significant departure from ballet. This work is decidedly modern dance, warp and weft. Although the longest piece of the evening's performance, it moved compellingly to East Indian dance music combining traditional elements with contemporary beats, and was intricate in both design and presentation.
[On a personal note, which deviates from the journalistic narrative above, i could appreciate this much in the same way as i can much modern art- i recognize artistry within it, but fail to grasp enough of the 'vernacular' (if that's the proper way to put it) and structure to really enjoy it the same way as ballet.
