A Teen’s Review of Sleeping Beauty at PNB
It’s been a while since my 14-year-old joined me at the ballet, but she was excited to see The Sleeping Beauty at Pacific Northwest Ballet last weekend. Even after she realized this was not the one-hour narrated PNB School performance.
Her drama teacher requires students to critique a professional performance, so I hijacked her homework. Here are my teenager’s unfiltered thoughts about this classic ballet, only slightly edited for spelling and punctuation.
Sleeping Beauty ballet critique
The ballet was fun to watch in the beginning, but near the end got a bit tiring. Even though this ballet was not the kids’ Sleeping Beauty version, it still had a large amount of story in it.
The Production
What was cool about this ballet is that PNB used special effects, and used ropes to suspend the fairies to make it look like they were flying. One especially notable part in this ballet was the costumes. The costumes were really pretty, and even from afar you could see the detail put into it.
Story
This ballet also had humor in it. During the wedding celebrations of the Prince and Aurora, a pair of cats played and danced around the stage, making the audience laugh.
The reason why the end half of the ballet was more sleep inducing was because it was late for me personally, and the end part was the wedding celebrations so there was more ballet and less story. PNB did a good job of formatting the story so that it was easy to understand, captivating, and led from one scene to the other smoothly. The woman who danced the Lilac fairy {Ed. Note: It was actually Elle Macy, who danced the Fairy of Generosity} was promoted tonight to a soloist.
The evil fairy had a group of old ladies following her when she cursed Aurora and when the prince killed her. I feel like the old ladies symbolized all the old ladies who are outcasts and exiles. This was a very lengthy ballet that took almost over three hours, and had three intermissions. The dancers used many gestures,dances,and movements to convey their character and intentions. But during the fairies gifting/introduction I was uncertain about which fairies were blessing Aurora with which gifts.
Overall Impression
I sat in the orchestra section and had a good view of the dancers, so when the queens long robe got stepped on multiple times I saw it and thought about how difficult it must be to walk around with that much fabric on you. Overall I really enjoyed this ballet and would recommend it to all ages over 10, just because of how late it is.
Tickets
The remaining performances are:
· Fri, Feb. 8 at 7:30 pm
· Sat, Feb. 9 at 1:00 pm
· Sat, Feb. 9 at 7:30 pm
· Sun, Feb. 10 at 1:00 pm
· Sun, Feb. 10 at 7:00 pm
Tickets may be purchased online. Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to each performance at McCaw Hall – these “at the door” tickets are half-price for students and seniors; $5 for TeenTix members. If you are between ages 20-40, sign up for ThePointe to receive discounts.
About The Author
GD
I'm a freelance writer in Seattle specializing in parenting, arts and the environment.