This season Pacific Northwest Ballet launched an audience education program called Ballet 101. It was great timing for me. It coincided with my decision to give up on my hippie-dippy pure experience approach to ballet and start learning about the art form that I enjoy so much. But the timing wasn’t perfect – I couldn’t make it to the first two sessions. But this week I finally attended my first Ballet 101 event, Contemporary Ballet: New Works and Current Trends in Ballet.

Course Description

Ballet 101 is a new audience education program by Pacific Northwest Ballet. It is a ticketed, four-part series. Topics include ballet terminology; steps and partnering; casting; contemporary works; and the business side of ballet. Each two-hour session is held at the Phelps Center, where the dancers rehearse. (Which is fun because you always see dancers around there. It’s kind of like walking on the Ave back in the day when you might get to feel cool for running into members of Pearl Jam or Soundgarden. Or maybe that’s just me.) The instructors are PNB artistic staff and dancers. This year tuition was $25 per session or $75 for all 4 sessions.

Contemporary Ballet

As I mentioned, I missed the first two sessions: The Business of Ballet and Ballet Basics Part One: Terminology and Solo Coaching. The one I finally got to attend was Contemporary Ballet: New Works and Current Trends in Ballet. I was excited for this one because I like being able to classify and define things. Dancers can get very cranky about people who call something ‘modern’ when they should say ‘contemporary,’ but I never been clear on what the difference is. I couldn’t necessarily explain it, but I usually have an opinion on whether something I see is ‘ballet’ or not. And I know that the pieces that spark the question are usually the ones I like best. At Ballet 101, I found out that my answer to the question “Is that a ballet?” is often – but not always – right.

Course Review

I think this course is incorrectly numbered. It didn’t feel like Ballet 101. More like Ballet 305 or even 411. We met in a conference room, with about 50 chairs facing a screen on which Audience Education Manager Doug Fullington played clips of the contemporary works under discussion (all of them drawn from this season’s programming). Fullington both moderated and participated in the panel with Ballet Masters Otto Neubert and Anne Dabrowski, as well as Artistic Director Peter Boal.

I recognized many of the people in the room from the Friday Preview I attended for Director’s Choice. So did the PNB folks, who called on people by name. No one was particularly interested in the 101-level questions I wanted answered – labels, yawn. Instead, the session was more like a seminar for majors. There were as many opinions shared as questions asked. The opinions often referred to specific dancers and choreographers. The questions dealt with choreographic lineages, notation systems, and historical and biographical details related to ballet companies around the world.

Syllabus

So, it wasn’t the structured, fundamentals of contemporary ballet lecture I was expecting. Instead, we watched clips from seven contemporary (in the sense of “choreographed in our lifetime”) ballets performed by PNB this season. Then the relevant ballet master talked about what was interesting or special about the piece, supplemented by commentary from Fullington and Boal, followed by audience interaction. The seven ballets discussed were:

• Her Door to the Sky
• Plot Point
• Red Angels
• Slingerland Duet
• One Flat Thing, reproduced
• Little mortal jump (opening tonight)
• Emergence (opening tonight)

I love all these ballets – even the ones that aren’t really ballet. And I do have a better sense of which ones are which now. Sometimes I get distracted by the costumes, sets, and music. But One Flat Thing, reproduced isn’t not-ballet because of Thom Willems’ industrial score. Crystal Pite uses an industrial score for Emergence, which is ballet. The real difference is technical.

(Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.)

What I Learned

Ballet: If dancers are en pointe, it’s a ballet. But a ballet doesn’t have to include pointe work. Ballet legs are turned out, posture is tight and elevated – like in Pilates class. Movement is articulated around the spine. Partners tend to maintain their separate centers of gravity; pas de deux are often “assisted solos” for the female. Most movement can be identified from a core curriculum of named steps – like the classical system of French haute cuisine.

Not-Ballet: Never uses pointe. Legs can be turned in and the posture is more grounded, like the martial artist’s “weight underside.” Movement is freer, especially in the spinal articulation. There is less concern with “lines.” Partners are more likely to share a center of gravity, which requires a different type of awareness and trust between partners. Choreography is often more detailed because every part of the body must be programmed – you can’t just say “do a grand jete here.”

Generally. Examples can be provided, and arguments made to disprove all of the above. Like sexuality, ballet exists on a continuum. Some choreography swings both ways.

The Pointe

Sorry for the cringeworthy pun. I’m glad I got the satisfaction of walking away with some technical insights to some of my favorite dances. But I also appreciate the view presented by Ballet Master Dabrowski. Echoing Duke Ellington’s “two kinds of music” quote, she basically said PNB is a ballet company that performs good dance. Whatever a piece started out as, you can call it ballet if a ballet company performs it. Or you can call it whatever else you want to. In the end there are only two kinds of dance – the good kind and the other kind.

Just the Facts

There is one more session of Ballet 101 this season. I may be in over my head, but I’ve already got tickets.