The Resounding Power of a Body in Motion

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Crystal Pite’s Emergence, which PNB is presenting on a mixed-bill with works by Jerome Robbins, Marco Goecke, and Price Suddarth, onstage at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall March 14 – 23 Photo © Angela Sterling

I’ve seen a generous amount of ballet in my life, yet I still have no explanation for how watching a body move through space can call forth such depth of emotion. On Opening Night of Emergence at Pacific Northwest Ballet, I came to the conclusion that whatever magic lies within that phenomenon, it’s a gift to be able to witness art that seems to change you in the course of a night. PNB’s fourth repertory program of the season features four contemporary works: the premiere of Dawn Patrol by PNB’s own Price Suddarth, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Marco Goecke’s Mopey, and Crystal Pite’s Emergence. New audience members drawn in by last month’s performances of The Sleeping Beauty might be in shock seeing the limitless voices that ballet can possess and the fierce beauty that is found within contemporary creations such as these.

The world premiere of Price Suddarth’s Dawn Patrol is one of those priceless works that could be called fiercely beautiful. Upon a cinematic stage, cast in heavy shadow, and with the wings pulled back to broaden the stage, Suddarth’s vision of portraying the heroism of World War II dawn patrol pilots beside the sacrifices of everyday life works exceptionally well. If you weren’t to read the program notes, you most likely wouldn’t catch the historical reference, but I don’t think that it matters. You’ll feel it regardless. With Alfonso Peduto’s vividly emotive new score, there’s no choice but to feel every ounce of what they all leave there in the dark. During a panel discussion the night before the premiere, Suddarth declared that the audience can “see what they wish to see, feel what they wish to feel”, and that certainly proved to be true. Each moment is etched with meaning, you mustn’t look far to feel the weight and intensity of the tale they spin.

Told in ten vignettes, Dawn Patrol is emotionally charged and poetic in the images it gifts us. It begins as gentle as a breath, with a dancer moving through the dark beneath the draped wings of Chrisoula Kapelonis’ singular set piece, where fog gathers, lingering eerily. Here, Noah Martzall’s unsettled, aching solo upon the tender beauty of the score seems to mirror the dawn pilots experienced contrast of flying into the sunrise while facing the worst of humanity. When he comes to a still, Elle Macy and Luther DeMyer flood the stage with a pas de deux as smooth as silk billowing in the breeze. We hardly dare to breathe as they encircle one another like curling ribbons, falling impeccably into Peduto’s gentle rhythm with soulful desire. They consume space like they’ll find some peace or answer hiding there, and streak the dim air with their glorious reach. It’s a breathtaking scene, wrought with such pure beauty that we can’t help but tumble after them into the depths of their sweet sorrow.

One of the blessings of having a company member choreograph for his colleagues is that he knows the strength of their individual voices, and they each bring more meaning to this work than I can even begin to capture here. Even in the stark light that renders them partial anonymity, this cast of ten carries the story with such purpose and earnest care that the human truth behind the movement shines luminously. All these moments of conflict aren’t fabricated, they’re just told by a different body, removed yet still firmly there, floating in the dark somewhere. Dawn Patrol is a beautiful tribute to those who have sacrificed, suffered, and muttered through, a picture of human strength in all its forms. It feels invaluable to view these grand events in their intimate achings, to see not only the heroic pilot, but the terrified young men behind the uniform, who, by Suddarth’s grace, get to grapple before us with the concept of heroism, with fear, and a deep knowledge of what they might lose. The weight of it all is palpable and visible in gestures that we instinctually recognize. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in the world premiere of Price Suddarth’s Dawn Patrol. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Such as when one vignette of brewing comradery nears its end and the men abruptly leave their dancing to walk side by side upstage into the dark, towards the unknown. Throughout the work, these moments of rising tension that collapse into silence often say the most and leave the audience clinging to their last breath.  It’s an image of inevitable loss when Dylan Wald slips from an embrace and leaves Leta Biasucci alone in the cool light, holding the dear space he once inhabited, or when Clara Ruf Maldonado’s hand unwinds itself from Christian Poppe’s arms, yearning for something out of reach. Suffarth has the ability to build memorable and ingenious choreography that imparts emotions you can’t even explain.

Such as the brilliant urgency of a trio formed of Luther DeMyer, Elle Macy, Noah Martzall who carve through the heights of intricate lifts until the two men lift Macy in an attitude, somehow departing a sense of constriction and control. Another lasting image: Leta Biassuci stepping into an arabesque, eyes towards the audience, while her hands cover Dylan Wald’s eyes. It’s so simple, yet these visions feel new, and unprecedented in their bestowed meanings. So many moments are chilling in their stark beauty: the simplicity of a shadow following her leader, or curved limbs glowing in the bright contrast of Reed Nakayama’s lighting. Perhaps nothing is more poetically profound than the closing image: one dancer, namely Christopher D’Ariano, moving with a heavy heart in the ebony dark, as snow begins to drift gently upon him, calling forth some human instinct for wonder and for stillness–for peace. These haunting gestures linger like lines of poetry in the air long after they’ve vanished from our sight.

New work is life-giving. Not just because a vision is born before our eyes, or that something now exists where there was nothing before, but because it shows us the endless bounds of the human need to create, and to convey the unspeakable. It’s not just a potently powerful work of art, it feels necessary, as if in each dark corner of that endless stage, there’s something that we so desperately need to witness and to feel. 

One sun-filled day, more than seventy years ago, Jerome Robbins caught sight of New York City Ballet’s Edward Villela napping in a sun-bathed studio and that idyllic image led to the creation of one of his most iconic works: Afternoon of a Faun. Using Claude Debussy’s Prelude a l’Apres-midi d’un Faune, just as Nijinsky’s 1912 ballet of the same name, Robbins draws us into a delicate, airy dream. The curtain rises to reveal hazy blue, and then, a bright, clean ballet studio, with the audience acting as the studio’s mirror. There, we find a dancer, not where we usually find them, but on the floor, facing away from us. When he rises, we quickly learn that we are just a fly on the wall, or rather, the mirror, and that what we are about to witness, is an intimate moment we were not meant to see. The entrance of the second dancer, with hair hung loose, and a similar eye for the mirror, is a dream-like vision in her drawn-out stylized movement. She seems to be an evolution of the Siren from Balanchine’s 1929 Prodigal Son, who possesses the same creaturely physicality and they even share identical steps shown soon after 

their entrances. But in temperament, they could not be more different. Afternoon of a Faun is enveloped in a whimsical hue, a dreamy mood that proves that sometimes the seemingly simple dances are the ones that linger the sweetest.

On Opening Night, Lucien Postlewaite and Clara Ruf Maldonado glowed with an effortless wisdom that made it difficult to believe that it was a double debut. Boldly defined and distinct, their combined lucidity captured the spirit of Faun as it was intended to be seen. One might say that ballet is always quiet, but this one holds late-afternoon silence in a way that truly hushes the world, and for eleven minutes, Postlewaite and Maldonado were an ethereal vision of reverence for that beauty. Though these two characters remain emotionless as they see through and past each other, there comes a turning point when they forget about the mirror for a brief breath, suddenly surprised to find each other there. Postlewaite and Maldonado captured this distinction especially well, and as he swung her to sit perched upon his shoulder, the intensity of their recognition was overwhelmingly beautiful. Bathed in an air of the sacred, their partnership gleamed with eloquent poise, and a weightless clarity of form that left us suspended in a dream.

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Dylan Wald and corps de ballet dancer Yuki Takahashi in Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun. Photo © Angela Sterling.

 Afternoon of a Faun is a piece with room for interpretation, with each dancer telling a different tale through minute details, which, in a ballet as delicate as this one, make a world of difference. On Saturday night, Dylan Wald and Yuki Takahashi had the audience under their spell, and only once the curtain fell did we dare to take a full breath. Wald, who always possesses a quality of divine ease and sincerity in all he does, could not be better suited for this role. With eyes full of wonder and pure innocence, what he brought to this iconic ballet was a fresh breath of awe that allowed the beautiful tenderness of this interaction to be seen. Just watching him brush his arms in intersecting arcs across the floor at the end was filled with the bliss of wordless poetry. Takahashi responded to that wonder with a great deal of expansive serenity and a tranquility that showed the humanity behind these stylized gestures. Faun is a ballet that has the potential to reveal the true capacities of an artist within its deceptive simplicity, and Takahashi certainly took that opportunity to show us something we’d never seen before. Together, their portrayal was a masterful dream, a genuine and intuitive encounter that made one believe that they weren’t trying to mold themselves to seventy-two-year-old choreography, but rather, that it was happening tonight for the very first time.

Jacques D’Amboise once said: “A pas de deux is always a pas de trois. The third person is the audience.” Afternoon of a Faun takes that statement to another level, for although we are merely a fly on the wall, it is through us that these dancers see themselves, and through us that they view each other. As Wendy Lesser put it in her biography of Jerome Robbins: “We, the witnesses who are also the reflections of this two-person tale, are the thing that gives it endless life."As the luxuriously drawn out, yet far too brief spell comes to a close, she leaves the stage, he returns to the floor, and we aren’t sure whether what we’ve just witnessed was a vision or not.  Either way, it’s a dream that leaves a sigh of peace long after the curtain falls.

Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Kuu Sakuragi in Marco Goecke’s Mopey. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Going from Faun to Marco Goeke’s Mopey feels a bit like falling from the clouds to some damp basement, yet side by side, they show a contrast in their view of perception. One cannot tear their eyes away from the audience, the other hardly knows we exist and spends nearly three-quarters of the piece with his back to us, oblivious of our curious eyes. Mopey was commissioned by Peter Boal and Company in 2004, and more than twenty years later, it still may be one of the strangest work in PNB’s repertory. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t wait for it to end, but, as with most art, if you give it a chance, a good earnest chance (and for this piece, maybe many chances), it eventually earns its place. Just over the course of the first weekend of Emergence, Mopey dramatically shifted before my eyes. That is due in great part to the artists debuting this work with newfound purpose and intensity. On Opening Night, Kuu Sakuragi brought a gentleness to the sharp edges of this work that allowed me to see its raw beauty and true character for the first time. His intensity through the dense choreography, and signature ability to move faster than seems possible, highlighted the internalized battle and self-sabotaging tendencies, as well as the humorous elements that remind us that not everything needs to be dreadfully serious. Mopey is a picture of rebelling against convention, and if you can accept that, it has the ability to gain a brighter hue.

But it was Joh Morrill on Saturday night who made me see the piece as more than just a gimmicky string of outrageous choreography. What I saw instead in his interpretation was a portrait of a young artist experimenting with what a body can convey, what frustrations and ecstacies can be made visible through movement, and ultimately who he wants to be as an artist. It was still wild and jarring, yet Morrill’s full commitment was enough to give me chills, which is something I never thought I’d be able to say about Mopey. Lesson learned: give those pieces that don’t sit right with you another chance.

Crystal Pite’s Emergence is another piece you must see multiple times, but for a very different reason. Her genius eye for pattern, complexity of vision, and ability to turn bodies into large-scale forms are layered enough that one can’t possibly take it all in on the first go. Emergence was the first work that Pite created for a big ballet company, whose large roster allowed her to begin exploring the endless possibilities of working with a stage full of bodies. This 2009 work, created for the National Ballet of Canada, features 38 dancers, Angels’ Atlas uses 36, and The Seasons’ Canon requires a whopping 54. Inspired by swarm mentality and all of the unseen, incomprehensible things that propel any group to act as one being, Emergence is a startling shock that earns a roaring standing ovation time and time again. It pulls you away from this world, to one where time ceases to exist, and only the synchronized ebbing, convulsing, compulsive movements that form patterns out of limb and air remain. As Crystal Pite puts it: “There’s something about synchrony that really resonates with people. It’s as if we’re always divided from each other and we’re craving unity. And so when we see it, we recognize it, its beautiful to us; its’s also familiar and it rings true”. Through this unity, Emergence slyly shows us recognizable visions brimming with meaning, symbols that echo our world disguised as those of the unhuman.  

One of these potently powerful moments is the breathtaking image of a line of women forming along the depth of the stage with one leg stretched before them, arms pulled back at the elbows; ready to stand as one. As they cross the stage, collectively whispering counts beneath their breath, men come running towards them one by one, but all fall back, repelled by some unseen force. When one breaks through, the line becomes a chain of linked, hissing creatures, who position their arms as if ready to pull an arrow from their spine in an unbreakable line of defense. Later, another line: this one of dancers who walk across the stage to a steady beat, following their leader until one fails to do so and changes the path that all those behind her take. It’s such a simple thing, yet it is profound symbolism for how one person, or one thing, can change the course of history; literally rewire destiny. Pite’s use of the sounds of marching is a haunting choice, for although the image before us is unhuman, we recognize our species in it, both the unstoppable strength of a group of marching beings and the startling lack of individual thought in large groups. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Crystal Pite’s Emergence. Photo © Angela Sterling.

The power of many is Emergence’s thesis, and the unity that Pite portrays within these intertwining images is nothing short of intoxicating. The group of dancers who enter masked and buzzing endlessly on pointe are so contorted in their human form that they amplify Pite’s ability to mold a body into a mass of limbs and shadow. Yet, as the line of shrouded figure releases its tension in a canon of relief, one turns to remove her mask and meet her partner, and we see Pite’s genius on a more intimate scale. On opening night, Elle Macy and Dylan Wald stepped into this eerie, crackling grand pas with sharp intensity and a physicality so creaturely that they became unrecognizable from the dancers we had just seen floating so lyrically through Dawn Patrol. Their captivating dance of domination and strained negotiation was a chilling sight, teeming with reactive hostility and convulsive exactness. Emergence’s movement vocabulary is one that Macy and Wald undertake exceptionally well, for they know exactly where the boundaries of each gesture lie, and exude these crisp, angular, and beautifully strange contortions of the human image with visceral tension and authenticity.

Emergence’s finale is a ferocious capturing of the ability for repeated patterns to become intoxicating. The stage fills with contrasting figures catching the light, silhouettes of limbs and forms against the glowing warmth, and when the multiple groups find synchronicity to move as one, it’s an image so powerful that it feels like they could never possibly come to a still. Unfortunately, somehow they do. The rhythm crawling deep into your bones proves Pite’s point precisely, and though at the end of the day, it’s “just” a ballet, it feels more significant than that. Emergence is a mighty statement on behalf of society and a grand testament to the strength and versatility of a company.

Though I risk over-sentimentality, I must also say that March has come again, bringing reminders of that time, five years ago, when the opening night of Rep 4 had to be canceled, and poor McCaw Hall sat empty for eighteen long months. I always feel tremendous gratitude within these walls, and in such inspired company,  but maybe especially each March those thoughts are at the forefront of my mind. I will bring it up again and again, for it seems necessary for us to remember, to remind ourselves just how precious and rare all of this is. Look! The night is long, and all these brilliant artists are dancing with full soul in the warm light. What a sight to behold: this glimmering moment in time that will never come just this same way again.

Pacific Northwest Ballet presents “Emergence” through March 23rd, and I hope to see you there!