Seen—and
Heard—at PNB’s Choreographers’ Showcase
Submitted by Rosie Gaynor and Toby Smith
Posted April 14,
2008
(l-r)
Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancers Kari
Brunson and Lindsi Dec in Kylee Kitchens’
Anima.
Photo © Rex Tranter
By “She,” “He,” the
choreographers, and various members of the audience
“Where is
everyone?” she has to ask, looking around at the audience, which
is on the spare side. “It’s so empty. There were so many more
people here last year,” he says.
And then, the
opposite: “Everyone’s here!” This from the person in front of
them, and from a person in the aisle. And it’s true. Patricia
Barker is sitting in front of them. Glenn Kawasaki, PNB’s eager
patron saint of the new [not afraid of the different] is over
there on the left. Choreographer Donald Byrd is there; he’s
artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater. And there is Anne
Derieux, Spectrum’s executive director, a woman Dance
Magazine described in 1998 as possibly PNB’s “most
sophisticated ballerina.” Board members… staff members (current
and past)…company members (current and past, including Nicholas
Ade with his cute little baby in tow)…the list goes on…
Everybody is
standing in the aisles, talking. It’s like watching a reunion.
And then the real
show starts: Seven choreographers’ chance to put something in
front an audience. They’re current PNB dancers; this is an
opportunity to show another side of their artistic selves.
They’re from all levels of the company: corps to principal. They
have varying levels of choreographic experience: some brand new.
And, as we hear in the post-show talk, they have varying degrees
of anticipation: from eagerness to dread.
“The first one was
my favorite!” This from someone in the lobby during
intermission. They’re talking about a love-lost pas de deux
from the charming Stacy Lowenberg. Her choreographic debut last
year, so interesting with its raw emotion and visceral
movements, was well received and later featured at Bumbershoot.
(It’s not often the work of first-time choreographers gets a
second life.) Her piece this year, to cello, is a quieter,
calmer telling of the end of that story. “It is poignant,” he
remarks. She agrees.
“In the second
piece, who was the dancer on the left?” he asks. “Kari Brunson,”
she says. “And I’ve never seen her dance so beautifully.” Then
follows the conversation about how these dancers, who live so
much of their lives together—daily class, rehearsal, life in
general—know better than outside choreographers how their
colleagues move and what inspires them. Whether it’s planned and
outlined and discussed or somehow just happens, well, that
question is left without an answer.
The second piece is
by Kylee Kitchens, whose it-started-as-a-prank choreographic
debut is a successful, dramatic black-and-white piece for a trio
of three strong women to the music of Maria del Mar Bonet. For
those of us not in the know, it’s hard to separate the music of
this Mallorcan woman from Nacho Duato’s ballet Jardí Tancat.
Possibly the same for Kitchens? “It looks like Jardí Tancat,”
he says. “Similar lines, similar passions,” she interrupts.
“…which is interesting,” he continues, “because I don’t remember
Kylee dancing that piece.” “It’s a kind of movement that just
gets inside of you and doesn’t let go, even just watching it. I
feel like I’ve danced it too” she says.
But it does bring
up the question(s) of inspiration vs. derivation:“Their first
piece…”
“How do you develop
your own style?”
"Supposedly,
Picasso said ‘Good artists copy. Great artists steal’”
“Is that good? Is
that bad?”
“I think it’s the
process of becoming a great artist. Start with what you love
already, then create something you love even more.”
“You can see bits
of different choreographers in everyone’s pieces: Duato, and
also Dumais, Liang, Tharp, more Liang, Paul Gibson even…”
“Olivier’s piece
wasn’t derivative.” That would be the third piece, Olivier
Wevers’ Moi Je Dis Que… to Mozart’s variations on
“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” “Uh, I though it felt a little
like Balanchine’s Duo Concertant. Except he was dancing
with himself.”
“Himself…and his
memories.”
Only, this doesn’t
come out until the post-performance discussion. Without that
crucial information, it is hard to access the piece.
A member in the
post-performance audience asks Wevers: “You put something on the
floor, stepped on it, and then put it into your pocket. What
particular meaning did it have?” “…I was taking my heart
out, having it stepped on, and always putting it back in my
pocket,” says Wevers. “I thought it was a rat,” says Peter Boal,
who is moderating the discussion. Everybody laughs, and the next
question hangs in the air, unvoiced: Is a personal piece as
effective if nobody knows what story it is telling?
And we find out, as
Wevers continues, with sincerity, not arrogance: “I didn’t
really do it to please anybody but myself. And I did. I’m sure
there’s a lot of things you didn’t get. And that’s fine. It was
very emotional for me.”
“I loved the
beginning,” she says later on. “The simplicity of the first
motif: feet moving one at a time, with Olivier-precision, into
first position, then into the more mod first position
parallel—and that little syncopation as he relaxed back into
second in later repetitions. It’ll stay with me for a long
time.”
“He looked great.”
This from Eric who sits next to them. He owns the hip clothing
boutique Polite Society, so he ought to know from looks. “I like
it when they dance in street clothes.”
Pacific
Northwest Ballet soloist Maria Chapman and principal dancer
Jonathan Porretta in Stanko Milov’s
Edin.
Photo © Rex Tranter
Stanko Milov’s
piece Edin is for them the surprise of the evening.
“The music and
choreography were more layered this time,” he says. “Last year
Stanko wore his emotion on his sleeve.”
“It was like
Underworld, the ballet. Kind of spooky and dark.”
“Electronic music—”
“Electric dancing.
Jonathan Porretta was awesome.”
“They all were. I
like how Stanko used the stage.”
“With the sole
female all ominous in the corners while the three men dominated
center stage.”
They find out later
that it’s supposed to be represent one man. “Edin” says
Stanko, “it means “one” in Bulgarian. So, it’s basically layers
of the same person.”
Kiyon Gaines’ much
lighter piece follows. “I like how it starts,” she says. “Lindsi
Dec popping out from the wings, stage right…Kiyon, stage
left…her nodding ‘yes’…him shaking his head ‘no.’ They look like
they’re having fun. And then, after all the dancing, him nodding
‘yes,’ and her shaking her head ‘no way.’ There’s something so
clean and precise about the way he moves,” she says. “I’d love
to see a piece with him and Olivier together.”
And then: Barry
Kerollis’ piece: Basic Disaster “The title cracks me
up,” she says. He agrees, “Funny title for your first piece.”
Only, the piece
isn’t funny at all…nor is it “basic”…nor is it a “disaster.”
Even the choreographer says so later on: “I feel it was not a
basic disaster,” Kerollis says. This very young man has
brought forth a piece that was seriously effective.
“I love the part in the beginning, when Kara Zimmerman
and Maria Chapman bourréed backwards across the
stage…their feet moving so fast…and in parallel. And the African
dance components: they really worked,” she says. “I like that he
set it on corps members, so you got to see them highlighted in
ways you wouldn’t normally see them,” he says. And later on,
Kerollis explains the titles of the ballet’s two sections,
“Flood” and “Typhoon.” “Ever since I was very young I’ve always
been fascinated by weather and natural disasters. Before I even
thought I’d be a dancer I thought I’d be a meteorologist.”
“This title cracks
me up too.” Again, from her, at the beginning of the evening,
about Jonathan Porretta’s Lacrymosa. “Not a word I’d
readily associate with Jonathan Porretta,” he says. “It’s gotta
be tongue in cheek,” she says.
“Knowing Jonathan,
it probably is,” says a writer friend a few seats behind them.
She actually does know the choreographer; she has interviewed
him several times. They all feel they know him, though. For
heaven’s sakes, half the audience has been watching him grow
over the years from a good dancer to a show-stopping dynamo to
an artist with multiple layers and amazing endurance.
“His piece last
year skirted the ballet/pop cross-over line,” he says. “Fun and
froth,” she says.
Lacrymosa
is not tongue in cheek…or fun…or frothy. This love duet is
straightforward and simple: no jokes, but a harsh ending, with
the woman standing all alone in the darkness. “So beautiful,”
they hear a woman behind them sigh. The choreographer would have
been happy to hear it. Later on, Porretta says: “I just
wanted to do something beautiful… The first serious piece I did
and I used (Chalnessa Eames) the funniest person in the
company!”
Another duet
follows, this one called Duet, choreographed by Anton
Pankevitch and beautifully danced by Lesley Rausch and Karel
Cruz.
A man later on asks
appreciatively, “Anton, yours was the most classical of the
group. Did you have a choreographic inspiration for the piece?”
“Yes,” says Pankevitch. “I was very lucky to work at the Royal
Ballet and Dutch National Ballet. At the Royal Ballet we did
lots of classics so that is my background. And so I found it
easiest to choreograph the classical. Especially nowadays it is
very little done.”
“Look who’s in the
last piece,” she says. “All jumpers.” That would be Bold,
Postlewaite, Griffiths, Moore, and Pacitti—in Kiyon
“Also-a-Jumper” Gaines’s Interrupted Pri’Si’Zh’En. (i.e.,
“Pre-ci-sion”). “All men,” he says.
Pacific
Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Benjamin Griffiths
in Kiyon Gaines’
Interrupted Pri’si’zh’en. Photo © Rex
Tranter
Later on, Gaines
says, “It was a challenge for myself to choreograph for men.
It’s actually easier for me to choreograph for females than for
male dancers, which is why I took on this challenge this time.
It might seem a little weird, because I’m a male dancer… I think
that women in pointe shoes can do incredible things. It’s
a lot easier to make them move quicker and come up with
wonderful things.”
Gaines says, when
someone asks about his casting for the piece, “I didn’t dance in
the last one because it’s way too hard!”
After the final
curtain, they hear the disembodied voice of the stage manager:
“Ladies and gentlemen, please join PNB’s artistic director Peter
Boal and tonight’s choreographers for a post-performance
discussion in the Norcliffe Room.”
“Wanna go listen?”
she asks.
“Don’t you have to?
That’s part of the fun,” he says.
Again with the
“everybody’s here.”
“It’s packed,” he
says.
“This is the single
largest turnout I’ve ever seen for one of these post-performance
talks,” one fellow remarks to the crowd at large.
Says another
fellow: “I’ve been coming to this set of dances for several
years now and every year it has been more impressive. I have to
say that this year is no exception.”
“Look how proud
Peter Boal looks,” she whispers. And then Boal says, “There are
so many choreographers we bring in, but these are our own.”
Boal goes on to ask
the young choreographers to talk about pieces that they are
premiering as part of the regular season.
“Mine will be in
November,” says Gaines. “The music is going to be commissioned
as well…by Cristina Spinei… a young woman who composed my music
when I was at the Choreographic Institute.”
“Mine is next
week,” countered Wevers. “It’s called Shindig. It’s for
ten dancers. And you’ll have to come and see it… No rats.”
For the Record:
Choreographers’
Showcase
Pacific
Northwest Ballet
April 9
One+One=1
Stacy Lowenberg
Anima
Kylee Kitchens
Moi Je Dis Que…
Olivier Wevers
Edin
Stanko Milov
Threefortwoinone
Kiyon Gaines
Basic Disaster
Barry Kerollis
Lacrymosa
Jonathan Porretta
Interrupted
Pri’Si’Zh’En
Kiyon Gaines
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