It’s not a rare occasion that a program at Pacific Northwest Ballet is so excellent that I find myself wishing that we could freeze the moment and dwell in that world for longer than two weekends. All Balanchine, which ran from November 1st-10th at McCaw Hall (and streams November 14th-18th for digital subscribers) was one of those reps that I could watch repetitively for quite a while. These three works, created over a forty-seven year span of George Balanchine’s life, somehow seem as though they were destined to sit side by side. Keen eyes will catch bits and pieces that coexist in each work, as though they are quoting each other. Square Dance includes the parallel leg swings of Prodigal Son, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto uses the “diamond pose” seen in the finale of Square Dance. They’re all interlaced, and I’m sure one could spend years studying the layers of these genius works.
I was lucky enough to see all four casts of Square Dance, and within each precious moment, observed the wide breadth of beauty that each cast brought to the stage. On Friday night, Dylan Calahan and Yuki Takahashi stepped into the principal roles with a kind of evident mastery that made it very hard to believe that this was indeed their debut. Takahashi moves through the endlessly intricate patterns as if dancing on the tip of a needle. Her light footed, crisp, and extraordinary precision was such a delight. The absolute joy was visible everywhere, in the happiest of little wrist flicks, and especially in the bubbling glee that comes when they burst out of the solemness of the adagio into pure exuberance.
Although Calahan has always caught my eye amidst the corps for his pristine movement, seeing him in this principal role made it all the more clear to me that despite this only being his second season in the corps, he already dances with principal-like maturity. His solo was one full of heart-felt adoration of movement. Far-seeing, with the most beautifully dynamic use of port de bra, Calahan brought glorious intensity and passion to each breath.
Friday night featured a very young cast of Square Dance, with a cast of all corps de ballet dancers and professional division students, and it felt like catching a glimpse of the future. A very bright future, that is.
Saturday night found Leta Biasucci and Kyle Davis stunning me yet again with their impeccable exactness. Together, they devour the music, turn it inside out, and make every brilliant pattern crystal clear. Their attentiveness to every small detail makes me see it anew each and every time. One such detail: when Biasucci brings her arms to fifth during the pas de deux, again and again she looks upwards at her hands with such beautiful wonder, as if to see them frame the sun. Their beautiful mastery is an honor to witness.
Finally, on Sunday, I was able to see Mark Cuddihee and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan attack this challenging gift of a dance with effortless precision. They found such divine sacredness in the pas de deux, and savored the singularly precious moment that they were painting together.
As I’ve seen in Coppélia, and in a handful of other demanding roles in which Ryan has shown her ability to turn the most complicated sequences into an absolute joy, her footwork is exquisitely sharp and meticulous. Most of all though, her radiance through every breathless moment is extraordinary. The glimmers of glee she finds in the tiniest of details makes it possible for the audience to see and appreciate those things as if discovering them for the first time. Additionally, she led the corps with a genuine appreciation, acknowledging them in a way I had never seen before that brought a beautiful sense of equity to the piece.
Mark Cuddihee’s solo, though reverently reserved at first, very quickly blossomed into a lyrical and moving testament to his artistry. He lands as softly as a bird from even the most airborne leaps, and is effortless buoyant through every sweeping earth-bound gesture.
What I’ve learned from seeing Square Dance is that even if you had never seen these remarkable dancers before, by the end, you would feel as though you know them. They show you who they are through these delightful intricacies. Not just the dancers in principal roles, but the corps members too: Zsilas Michael Hughes’ astounding height and power, Malena Ani’s little extra bit of purpose-driven care, Juliet Prine’s bright glow and gorgeous arabesque, Larry Lancaster’s ability to soar, and Melisa Guilliams’ perfect grande jetés, just to name a few. It’s a relentlessly breathless piece, yet they all made it look not just effortless, but a thrill to dance.
Every so often, a dancer interprets a role with such exquisiteness that I feel compelled to see every performance they are given in order to catch the fine nuances and experience every drop of brilliance that they let fall to the stage. In the past few years there have been many of these: Elizabeth Murphy and Lucien Postlewaite in Romeo et Juliette, Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Kyle Davis in Coppélia, Elle Macy and James Kirby Rogers in Swan Lake, Madison Rayn Abeo in Giselle (fine, there was only one performance of that, but I would have gone to many more) and now, Lucien Postlewaite as the Son, and Elle Macy as the Siren in Balanchine’s legendary Prodigal Son.
The beauty in seeing the same work multiple times with the same cast, is that you can fully appreciate the details that may have slipped past the first time. In an interpretation of a role as vivid as Lucien Postlewaite’s Son and Elle Macy’s Siren, there are endless amounts of these moments that still manage to amaze me even after seeing them craft this tale together three times.
Postlewaite’s Son is one who we truly get to see go through the full arc of the story. He goes from being weightless, soaring through the air (and my goodness, does Postlewaite know how to jump higher, and with more vigor than seems possible), to being dragged earthbound by his own fragile state. His naivety is clear to see in the beginning, which makes the ending even more painful. It was during the second Friday night’s performance that I realized just how impossibly small Postlewaite shrunk himself to be after he melted away from the crucifix. This roaring character who was just boisterous and outspoken moments before, is scrawny, weak, raw, and suddenly so very small before us.
It was during this same performance that I at last realized why Elle Macy’s Siren is from the very first breath, so brilliantly different from any other I have seen. In an art form where the way one carries their arms is often the strongest form of communication, I have never seen a Siren with such a meticulously crafted presentation. When she first floats onto the stage, her arms are not led solely by the wrists, but rather by the elbows as well, as if pulled by heavenly strings. This tiny detail adds an otherworldly quality that never fades. It’s a moment of ethereal beauty before the fierceness flooding through her limbs becomes apparent. Macy holds her arms like wings, with tremendous strength growing there that first captures the attention of the Son, and later, frightens him as well.
Postlewaite’s Son is in awe of this unwieldy Siren, breathless in fear and astonishment. And he should be. After she first coils and uncoils her lush red cape, she wraps it around herself with such ferocious force that during each performance, a cloud of dust went flying up into the dark. She comes down from développé á la seconde with unhuman-like control, and the hand that crawls up the back of her head to extend above her is electric with radiating power, and a manner of eeriness that reaches far out into the audience. She shows her character brilliantly in every sharp lift of the chin, and in each swift, commanding step and gesture.
With each performance, I noticed more layers of detail that created unforgettable interpretations of these iconic characters. As soon as the Siren has seen that the Son has successfully fallen into her trap, she cracks a smile; a knowing, glowing, cunning smile. When the Siren is portrayed solely as stony (which is, ironically how Balanchine originally wanted it. I for one am glad that other interpretations are welcomed), we miss out on a very important part of her character, and on the opportunity for connection with the Son. Macy and Postlewaite found the perfect key to shaping their characters' interactions: eye contact. Some play the Siren as dead-eyed or vacant, but Macy glows with zealous intensity, knowing that her power is in her eyes just as much as it is in her limbs. When they sit together at the back of the stage, she pulls him back to face her again and again, physically drawing him closer to stare into her eyes, and later, she uses this power in an almost Odile-like, two-faced way.
As they lumber together across the stage, the Siren on her knees while the Son holds her from behind, we get to see her act of deception in action, and it’s brilliant. She’s fierce and cold when facing the audience, but every time she looks upwards at the Son, a fawning smile transforms her for a brief instance. I’ve never seen any other cast add this detail, but in my head, this section is now called “the fawning”. As she reels him into her web, this cheeky smirk arises, as if she is amused by her own power. Letting a connection grow between them, however misleading it may be, makes her skill of deception even more clear by the end. In an instant, she’s forgotten about him, with hungry eyes that only see the glittering prize around his neck.
I don’t know how I managed to forget to mention the goons last week, but my goodness, did they nearly steal the show! They looked like they were having way too much fun up there, relishing each moment of grotesque and strange choreography. Bravo to them for going all in on these uniquely demanding roles.
Prodigal Son has quickly jumped onto my list of favorite ballets. There is an element of sacredness even amidst the mad, and the awe-inspiring moments never seem to grow old no matter how many times you see them. In a succinct 40 minutes, Balanchine managed to capture the particular magic of a narrative ballet, and with Prokofiev's rich score, they paint this ancient story in a powerfully novel light.
Stravinsky Violin Concerto highlights Balanchine’s fearlessness to shatter expectations, to be extraordinary, to let his dancers be extraordinary in a new, shining, luminous way. It is a work which truly deserves to be called a masterpiece. Even after seeing it an unmentionable amount of times over the course of this run, it still baffles me with its undeniable brilliance. Just sitting in the audience, you can feel its heartbeat in your bones long after the curtain falls. Fifty-four years after it first premiered at New York City Ballet’s Stravinsky Festival, it still feels remarkably fresh, as if the canvas is still wet, and the dancers are stepping into these delightful patterns for the first time.
During the second weekend, I had the chance to catch some new faces in these roles, as well as bask in the joy of seeing the same dancers several times. On Friday night, Madison Rayn Abeo and Dammiel Cruz-Garrido filled the stage with a ridiculous amount of joyous precision. Abeo found every little beautiful detail to savor and, as she so often does, showed us the delight as if to say: “See this! See this little glimmer of light!”. Cruz-Garrido, wonderfully serious in his work, could not help but break into a smile as he and Luther DeMyer gave in to the irresistible joy of moving to such a rapturous melody. DeMyer dances this work with a carefree, loose movement quality which makes it appear as though these steps are a deep-rooted intuition urgently trying to break into the light.
I also treasured the opportunity to see opening night’s cast once more, and found myself enraptured as though it were the first time. I believe I could watch them possess this piece forever, and never be able to pull my eyes away. Upon his entrance, Dylan Wald carves the air with a kind of majestic intensity, and is throughout, gloriously refined while making everything look playful and far too effortless. There’s a part in the Toccata that made me shake my head in disbelief every time: as another dancer exits the stage in a series of chaines turns, Wald enters from the neighboring wing, also in chaines turns, but twice as fast, a blur that comes to a still and falls into the heavy rhythm of a brief, but luxuriously divine solo.
Angelica Generosa and Dylan Wald’s glorious Aria was brimming with purpose and a longing to explore every corner of this passionate pas de deux. Generosa’s hands move like curling ribbons in this piece, adding the most beautiful final touch to each gesture. Elle Macy and Christopher D’Ariano were once again breathtaking in the first Aria, all splendid long-limbed reach and contraction. Their pas de deux is one of extremes–containing both heart-felt and heart-racing moments, both the sentimental and the sensational–and they filled every ounce of it with superb beauty and devotion.
Amidst the joy, and good-humored fun of Stravinsky Violin Concerto, both Arias are thought-provoking and full of raw beauty. There’s a blue-toned somberness permeating them, but thankfully, Balanchine pulls those four dancers, and us, right back to brilliant joy, after letting us rest in that intimate place for a moment.
Balanchine’s genius for creating satisfying patterns is evident in every moment of this work. From the jazzy, Broadway-esque window lines sequence, to the corps de ballet whose limbs become sharp-edged geometry with the simple turn of the wrist, there are often so many contrasting shapes on stage that it’s hard to know where to look. That’s one of the reasons why I think this is a ballet that you simply have to see as many times as possible. It’s visually stunning in a way that you can’t possibly take in all at once.
When discussing Stravinsky Violin Concerto, New York City Ballet’s Taylor Stanley said: “It became almost like required reading to me after a while, and I watched in order to notice all of Balanchine’s hidden choreographic nods and ideas.”
One of these fascinating details is that there are several instances where the dancers start a rhythm, and then the music shifts until they “click” just perfectly. They begin a sequence that lays in juxtaposition on top of the music, but after a few seconds, the music follows their cue until it feels as though they exist firmly in the music, or perhaps, are the music.
A huge shout out must also go to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s exemplary orchestra. In the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to hear the orchestras (or lack thereof) at three world-renowned ballet companies, and can now more fully appreciate how spoiled we are in Seattle. It is a gift to hear them bring these elaborate works to life.
The finale is a burst of radical energy and form, and within its intoxicatingly complex patterns, the dancers glow with newfound radiance. It all starts with an enthusiastic wave, and then folds into mountainous melodies of shifting new rhythms that lose and find themselves over and over. Toe taps, heel digs, enthusiastic stomping… there is so much rhythm in this piece that it ended up coming home with me. It’s a ridiculously fun time, and I hope we won’t need to wait eight long years again before these works grace the stage. I for one am ready to see them again tomorrow, and the day after too.
All Balanchine streams November 14th-18th, only available as part of a digital subscription. Learn more here: https://www.pnb.org/season/subscriptions/digital-sub/
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