Fueling the Necessity of Creation: NEXT STEP 2025

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students in Amanda Morgan’s Ether, presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.

The world possesses an unquenchable need for new work, new voices, and the inspired conversations that lift from their wings. But how do new voices find their way into the light, and where do they find the resources to bridge inspired minds and inspired bodies? PNB’s NEXT STEP program is a rare and vast effort to do just that by providing creative support and opportunity. The annual one-night-only performance of new works choreographed by dancers of Pacific Northwest Ballet and performed by PNB’s remarkable Professional Division students has quickly become one of my favorite nights of the year. Where else can you see five world premieres for one night only? Led by Eva Stone, NEXT STEP is, as Stone puts it: “a gift in the way that it encourages artists”. Returning this year to the limitless possibilities of McCaw Hall, five new visions by Amanda Morgan, Jonathan Batista, Kyle Davis and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan, Sam Portillo, and Lily Wills filled a mid-June night with an electric current of hope for the future of creation.

A startling voice of reason in the dark, rattled by its aged recording, followed by another, and another. White button shirts upon suspended hangers. Aki Widerquist alone, dressed in white, partially illuminated like a half moon: curling, shifting in the boundless space. So begins Amanda Morgan’s newest work, Ether. 

As the shirts lower, billowing eerily with a life of their own, a group dressed in black emerges from the dark to gently ease the shirts from their hangers. Later, they’ll set aside these shirts, dispose of them in a pile of the former living, but for now, with shirts in their hands, the hangers draw away, leaving this group to face the audience and find unity. Morgan holds a Crystal Pite-like power to shift reality. In a swarm of many, the slightest movement of their unified body becomes a mesmerizing sight, one which, like Pite’s work, seems to briefly change the balance point of the earth. Tilting until they collapse to the ground in near-slow motion, hands that reach to hold the edges of their own familiar faces, even just fourteen bodies walking with intention, is a powerful sight. When movement is tied to the rhythm of speech, it finds itself drifting from phrase to phrase with self-driven momentum. But as echoing voices give way to the soft strains of Peter Gregson, dancers fall into a gently carved fluidity, where resounding gestures lie in the dim air.

Halfway through Ether comes a profoundly poetic vision: pairs of dancers fill the back of the stage while downstage, Aki Widerquist mirrors one half of their pas de deux in perfect unison. Pairs of dancers come and go, like vignettes of days gone by, and Widerquist continues to latch on to their movement, dancing with air. It’s a haunting sight to see her truly feel the absence that her fingers grasp for, pulling at the air as though they might find the missing substance, to navigate through partnered support by herself, to find a push and pull against nothing but emptiness. Visions of connection resound upstage as Widerquist moves through this haunting dance with the past, consumed by the intangible. In a work of memorable visions, days later, it was this image that lingered like a radical line of poetry: Widerquist fully engulfed in the depth of gestural meaning, while dark figures from another world played out what she’d once held in her hands. 

Later, the voice returns, asking, “What are you angry about?” as one of the dancers dressed in black embraces Widerquist. She’s held by this collective group, separate yet encircled by their connection, bridging the space between two worlds. She’s lifted and moved, submerged within their unity until they leave her, and there, beneath the empty hangers in the rich dark, Widerquist falls into soulful lyricism, alone.

Oh, art that makes us feel something is a gift. To blink back tears at the profound vision unfolding before you, to feel the human truth of each gesture, to wish that one could remain in that space of pure feeling for longer than a piece can contain. Ether lingers with resonant strength, reminding us that at its core, dance is a healing, revealing substance.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students in Jonathan Batista’s Suddenly, O FIM (The End), presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.

To the incessant patter of bells, Jonathan Batista’s Suddenly, O FIM (The End) contemplates the bookending events of a life: descending to life, rising to the beyond, as well as the experiences of attachment, love, and loss that fill a life. Opening upon a scene of vastness, crouching figures rest at the feet of LeeAnaca Moore as she is lifted above their heads, reaching towards some unseen pinnacle. Their taut curves that uncoil in staccato reveal the innocence and vulnerability of a newly formed life. In chain reactions, syncopated body percussion, and geometry passing along a line, the nude-clad group forms a unified body, breathing life through each linked cell. They briefly echo the canons that ripple through bodies in Crystal Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon, heads lifting one by one as they arch back in almost unhuman, spastic reactions.

An original score by Leandro Albuquerque provides an expansive canvas upon which light, form, and fragmented fluidity find a fresh melody in which to expand. After a rush of precise unison, and repetition that finds a heartbeat within contraction and expansion, all comes to a still in a mirror image of the beginning. Moore is lifted once more, and there we leave them, reaching, reaching towards the light.

A world away, Pas de Deux from an Unnamed Story burst forth as a little jewel of historical insight and cultural recognition. Kyle Davis and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s vision for a new story ballet set in 1810s Veracruz, Mexico, is born from the need for diversity in the stories that are told through ballet. It’s no secret that the ballet world needs some new stories. That’s not to say that our beloved classics should wither away, but what new stories can be added into the mix of repertoire to let other voices fill the stage? Recent attempts to produce new story ballets unusually fall into two categories: European and American literary classics (Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, Alice in Wonderland, The Winter’s Tale, etc.) or if they do bring an underrepresented culture to the stage, such as Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, it’s often brought to life in a contemporary vocabulary that cannot be compared to the great classics. 

But judging from this polished excerpt, safe to say, Kyle Davis and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s eye for nuanced detail and complexity bring this story to the level of long-cherished classics. Closer in style to Petipa than Wheeldon, a deep knowledge and appreciation of classical phrasing can be seen in every step. In fact, presented anywhere outside of NEXT STEP, I might have been tempted to guess that this pas de deux was an unknown treasure of the past. For it is so purely classical in form, and enriched with such cultural flair, that it seems nearly too rich to come from an era when many new story ballets tend to present unmusical phrases to rather uninspired music. With gleefully quick footwork, little sparks of character, and musicality that tickles the brain, Pas de Deux from an Unnamed Story is timelessly beautiful.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students McKenzie Wilson and Luke Gutierrez in Kyle Davis and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s Pas de Deux from an Unnamed Story, presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.

From the first soft swoon of vintage lilt, Luke Gutierrez and Mckenzie Wilson told a story all their own in every glimmer of eye contact and lush port de bra. Beginning as gentle as a summer evening's swell, the intricacy of classical ballet glimmers. From careful wrappings of the arm, to Wilson flitting away with steps as soft as a feather, to a charming lift that coils to find Wilson sitting upon Gutierrez’s knee, the details shine like pearls in the soft light. Then, some flair and fire full of character, with hops on pointe to the most delightful tune that was clearly meant to be danced, a whirlwind of technical prowess, and joy radiating from every balletic thrill. In the tender final moments of this pas de deux (that I wished might never find its end), with the stage shrouded by an enchanted hush, Gutierrez draws into the dark, away from Wilson’s desperate arms, leaving her alone in a haunting stillness. 

Pas de Deux from an Unnamed Story is the culmination of a story we haven’t yet seen, but from this brief spell, our hearts are already entwined in Kyle Davis and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s vision. During the post-performance panel, Kyle Davis asked, “Where is ballet going? What are the new stories being told?” By taking the work of representation into their own hands, Davis and Ryan have found a path forward that honors the history, technique, and beauty of classical ballet while finding the stories that have been lacking within the repertoire. It’s a story that I truly hope we’ll see in completion someday, for on this lovely June night, the future of ballet could not have glimmered brighter in the hands of such devoted care. 

In Tomorrow, Sam Portillo's first choreographic work, he explores memory in a nonlinear, hazy world. As casually-clad dancers pound the floor and fall into swooping, curved corners, one crouching, bent character stands watching. At last this character, brought to life by Isaiah Salas, begins to move too: a tormented silhouette brimming with visceral confliction. As he watches, dancers pound the ground as if to keep it still beneath their hands, and move through windings and unwinding of crossing paths. LeeAnaca Moore emerges as another magnetic form, all liquid strength and fluidity, who, dragged and pulled by others, falls into her own pounding of the earth. Her’s feel potently different in character though, for her hands search with the same desperation as The Seasons’ Canon's final breath. Echoes of other works always deepen a piece, I find. For even this brief little glimmer, a flash of familiarity, lets more meaning flood into the weave of the work. 

Salas moves with a nature that could spin the world with the simplest inclination of movement, and nowhere is this more clear than in Tomorrow’s final moments. With an almost Mopey-like effect of controlled breath, hard-hitting physicality, and a single slap that renders him contorted in reaction, it’s an arresting moment of individuality. But then this crouched character finds his corner once more, and watches as two dancers step into a soft, endless flow that continues on even as the curtain falls. Perhaps they danced on forever, hidden from our sight. I, for one, wished that curtain would raise to let us watch them carry on.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students in Samuel Portillo’s Tomorrow, presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.

Last year, Lily Wills whisked us away to a mythical land in her Circe myth-inspired Isle of Woman, but this year, in As if Apart, she writes myths of her own. Kyle Davis called Wills “The Wes Anderson of dance”, and it’s not hard to see why. Wills possesses a gift for creating a world of her own upon the stage, or in this case, perhaps many little intertwined worlds that come together like a collage, coexisting instead of colliding. Although this is only her third work for NEXT STEP, it is so clearly hers: colorful, eccentric, and full of fascinating ideas that blossom with distinction.

For one millisecond, Justin Peck came to mind as athletic dancers burst from the wings to Chris Cohen’s racing drum beat, but that thought quickly vanished, for Wills’ eye for form and energy abound everywhere. Clad in white sneakers, black shorts, and white tank tops baring a word or two like runners in some bright, joy-steeped race, these “runners” are joined by Aki Widerquist, moving soft-footed through a decidedly different world than the one they inhabit. Then, four on pointe from another realm, “The Voices”: a regal force of elementals who step over Widerquist with high-held eyes.

If that wasn’t already enough of a blend of tone and energy, the second movement finds five dancers in some spring meadow right out of a fairytale. Filled with folk-whimsy, and with nothing but blissful beauty around, they seem to prove George Balanchine’s point that all you need onstage are dancers who “are already a story in themselves”. Aki Widerquist’s intriguing central character is the one who weaves seamlessly through these worlds. She commands the stage, enveloped by pure intention, and delves deeply into the swirl of story that these intertwining hues create.

The final movements' bright burst of optimism highlights Wills’ ability to fill a stage with momentum, to create separate worlds and let them come together in a whirl of overlaying patterns that somehow find themselves to be fond companions. It simply works. The fusion of four stark figures on pointe circling Widerquist, runners running through with all the boundless energy of a sneaker ballet, and those folksy folks full of sprite... it’s all so very bright. In the end, twenty-six dancers briefly find unison, similar to how four lines of dancers come together in Kiyon Ross’ …throes of increasing wonder,  and Wills finds that same power to overwhelm the stage with precise synchronicity. The shouts that resounded as the curtain fell said it all, As if Before is a powerhouse of imagination and execution.

Temporality is a hard pill to swallow, for I could have seen these works many times over, but what a gift to get to have one precious night where new visions come to life with brilliant force. It’s a beautiful thing to see such artistry fill the stage and to feel that the future of ballet is indeed very bright in the hands of these exquisite dancers and choreographers. NEXT STEP is a gift to the art form, all those who inhabit it, and those of us lucky enough to witness such purpose-driven creation. A tremendous bravo to all!

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students in Lily Wills’ As If Apart, presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas.