ByGD
In my review of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 2014 Director’s Choice program on Monday I wrote:
I could say so much more about “State of Darkness” … this piece set off bottle rockets in my brain and it will probably take a while to make sense from all the patterns.
My mind has been churning on this dance since I saw it last week, and although I have yet to make sense of all the patterns, I need to say so much more about it.
ByGD
In one episode of the Curious George cartoon, the man in the yellow hat says, “Magnetism is my favorite invisible force!” My family loved that line and we’ve found a surprising number of opportunities to use it in real life. At the 2014 Director’s Choice program last weekend, Pacific Northwest Ballet made a convincing argument for some of the others – and I’m not talking about gravity. Read More
ByGD
This last week my life has taken the work/life balance conflict to new levels. I am up against a hard deadline on a major project at the day job. Meanwhile my building was on lockdown with half a million people expressing their love for the Seahawks on the street outside. Last weekend my family passed a major milestone – all four of us rode the lift and came down the mountain together. And on Saturday, my youngest daughter and I caught the matinee of Pacific Northwest Ballet‘s production, The Sleeping Beauty. It’s a true classic, rich in symbolism and full of an entirely different, more graceful kind of balance. Read More
ByGD
I hardly know where to begin talking about Pacific Northwest Ballet’s latest rep, Kylian + Pite, but I’m afraid that once I start, I won’t be able to stop. Like my recent experience with Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm at Decibel Festival, this performance forced me to reconsider the very definition of one my favorite art forms.
ByGD
The seasons changed this weekend. Friday night was my last summer music festival. Saturday afternoon Pacific Northwest Ballet kicked off the fall arts season with a mixed program choreographed by Twyla Tharp. Like Vin Diesel says in xXx, “I live for this shit.” It is no accident that my house is exactly 3 miles from Seattle Center. Google Maps claims it takes 11 minutes from my driveway to the McCaw Hall parking garage. So when I left my house an hour before AIR Twyla, it was only because my date for the performance – my 9-year-old daughter – was getting antsy. It was a good thing we left early, because it took us over an hour to get there.
We slipped into the empty back row to see the PNB premiere of artist-in-residence Twyla Tharp’s “Brief Fling,” already in progress. I find it disconcerting to miss even the first few seconds of a performance. Not so my kid. Moments after we sat down, she stage-whispered, “I love this one already!”