When I heard that Pacific Northwest Ballet principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore were starting their own off-season dance company, I knew it was going to be something special. I gladly took the ferry to Vashon to see Program One of the Seattle Dance Collective performed at the Vashon Center for the Arts. As you know, I was so impressed with both the facility and the overall program, I ran out of space to talk about the specific dances. So here are some of my impressions of the first three pieces: “The Grey Area,” “Shogun,” and “Sur Le Fil.”
PNB fans will already be familiar with the choreography of David Dawson (when I saw “Empire Noir” at PNB, it struck me as very metal.) “The Grey Area” suffered from being a good ballet surrounded by remarkable ones. While there isn’t any intriguing backstory or bizarre staging involved, this stripped down, architectural pas de deux was exactly the sort of contemporary ballet that you would want to build a company repertory around.
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Devoid of bells and whistles, with a minimal violin soundtrack and neutral, almost nonexistent costumes, there was nothing to focus on here but the lines and angles of competent dancers. This was the only piece on the program with pointe work. It was a perfect introduction, establishing the company’s technical chops before challenging viewers with the more adventurous choreography to follow.
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Shogun
Choreography: Ivonice Satie Music: Milton Nascimiento, Fernando Bryant Staging: Liris do Lago Lighting Design: Ivonice Satie
Cast I Saw: James Moore, Ezra Thomson
Moore has a personal connection to Shogun because he grew up watching Ivonice Satie’s ballet about passing down Japanese cultural heritage to the next generation in San Francisco. But this was one of the pieces I was most excited to see because of a different personal connection. Satie dedicated the piece to her grandfather who taught her the traditional Japanese arts of laido and Shinto-ryu. My husband is one of only three Americans certified to teach that style of sword work.
Fumichigai?
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
So of course we were looking for evidence of Shinto Ryu, and though the dancers wore hakama, the choreography was not nearly so literal. “Shogun” explores the relationship between master and disciple, which was much more obvious than martial tradition in the choreography, with one dancer often mimicking the other. On the other hand, we are only familiar with the sword arm of the Shinto Ryu curriculum. Another branch of the school practices kenbu (martial dance) which includes the use of fans. Maybe Satie was literal after all?
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Sur Le Fil
(By a Hair’s Breadth)
Choreography: Penny Saunders Music: Mike Wall, Moon Dog, Yann Tiersen Staging: Jacqueline Burnett Lighting Design: Ben Johnson
Cast I Saw: Liane Aung, Angelica Generosa, Jim Kent, Elle
Macy, Elizabeth Murphy, Miles Pertl, Ezra Thomson, Dylan Wald
Between the suspenders and the fedoras, it was inevitable
that “Sur Le Fil” would remind me of Twyla Tharp’s “Waiting at the
Station.” But costuming is really all those two dances have in common. In
contrast to Tharp’s jazzy soundtrack, “Sur Le Fil” starts out with a poem
recorded in French and moves through field recordings of a child talking, radio
news broadcasts, muted drums, and the Amelie soundtrack.
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
The fedora hats are more than just costuming. They become props
to the dance, earning so much attention from both dancer and audience that they
start to feel meaningful. Unlike “Waiting at the Station,” I never discovered the
metaphor in “Sur Le Fil,” but eventually the hats became a more abstract focal
point. Like a mantra.
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
My first impression was of “Waiting at the Station,” but in the end, “Sur Le Fil” was more like “Little Mortal Jump.” It inexplicably made me want to cry.
{I attended Program 1 courtesy of SDC and Vashon Center
for the Arts. The tickets were theirs; the opinions are mine.}
It’s not very often you get a chance to witness the birth of a new arts institution. But when I heard that Pacific Northwest Ballet principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore were starting their own off-season dance company, I knew it was going to be something special. Even though I usually keep my arts adventures close to home (living in Fremont, I there is more good art than I can consume within 3 miles of my house) I gladly took the ferry to Vashon to see Program One of the Seattle Dance Collective.
Seattle Dance Collective
As founding artistic directors Pantastico and Moore are quick to make clear, Seattle Dance Collective (SDC) is a side hustle. They are both in a place to be thinking about their post-PNB careers, but neither of them is ready to move on yet. Instead, SDC is intended as a summer season company.
With only ten dancers, the company repertory will necessarily
comprise smaller, contemporary pieces that don’t use the principal/soloist/corps
structure of classical ballet. But with eight of the ten dancers recruited from
PNB (two work with Whim W’him) you can
still expect it to be ballet. The small size of the organization and the
facility also necessitates recorded music rather than the live orchestra of
PNB. SDC makes up for this by using non-orchestral music and introducing a lot
of verbal narrative to the dances.
Vashon Center for the Arts
Although “Seattle” is in the name, SDC has found a home at the Vashon Center for the Arts. I confess that although I’ve lived in Seattle since 1992, the first time I ever went to Vashon Island was three years ago to pick up my daughter from her middle school orchestra retreat. So in my mind, Vashon was already associated with the arts.
The Vashon Center for the Arts opened in the summer of 2016,
a $20 million arts facility in a community of 10,000 people. This was my first
visit to the Center, which is a small but lovely arts venue. There’s a gallery
in the lobby (and judging by all the red stickers, performance venues are a
great place for artists to sell their work) with really interesting work on
display. The stage is just the right size for a small dance company like SDC,
and the auditorium is comfortable and intimate. Even when I get the really good
tickets at McCaw Hall, I am never as close to the stage as a person sitting in
the middle of VCA.
The hassle of the ferry means that it’s tempting to “make a
day of it” when you see something at the Vashon Center for the Arts. But there
are worse things than spending the day on Vashon. The cost of the ferry means
that tickets at VCA are not as affordable as they seem at first glance, but the
space is worth the added cost for shows you really want to see. For me, that
will definitely include future programs of Seattle Dance Collective.
In a Minute
Program One officially comprised six short contemporary ballets, but the performance began with an unannounced piece. Pantastico crawled out from behind the still-closed curtain to perform In a Minute by choreographer Penny Saunders. Unlike the dancer in the video below, she her costume and facial expressions evoked a creepy doll.
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
The 90-second dance was simultaneously unnerving and a delightful Easter Egg that clued us in to not expect much in the way of traditional presentation from SDC.
Program One
Even if I try to keep my comments short (and you know how
good I am at that) I have too much to say about what I saw at Program One
to fit it all into this post. So I plan on writing about the dances themselves separately.
But for the record, here is what was on Program One.
Choreography: Ivonice Satie
Music: Milton Nascimiento, Fernando Bryant
Staging: Liris do Lago
Lighting Design: Ivonice Satie
Cast I Saw: James Moore, Ezra Thomson
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Sur Le Fil
(By a Hair’s Breadth)
Choreography: Penny Saunders
Music: Mike Wall, Moon Dog, Yann Tiersen
Staging: Jacqueline Burnett
Lighting Design: Ben Johnson
Cast I Saw: Liane Aung, Angelica Generosa, Jim Kent, Elle
Macy, Elizabeth Murphy, Miles Pertl, Ezra Thomson, Dylan Wald
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Anamnesis
Choreography: Bruno Roque
Music: Nils Frahm
Text: Noelani Pantastico
Lighting Design: Alex Harding and Bruno Roque
Cast I Saw: Noelani Pantastico
Frugivory
Choreography: Bruno Roque
Music: Dead Combo
Costume Design: Noelani Pantastico
Lighting Design: Reed Nakayama
Cast I Saw: Liane Aung, Angelica Generosa, Jim Kent,
Elizabeth Murphy, Miles Pertl, Dylan Wald
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Mopey
Choreography: Marco Goecke
Music: CPE Bach, The Cramps
Staging: James Moore
Lighting Design: David Moodey
Cast I Saw: James Moore
Angela Sterling photo c/o SDC
Next Up
Seattle Dance Collective has not announced specific plans for the future yet. It’s uncertain when Program Two will take place, or how many programs they hope to perform each summer. It’s possible that we’ll have to wait until next year for a follow up. But you can be certain that I will be there.
{I attended Program 1 courtesy of SDC and Vashon Center
for the Arts. The tickets were theirs; the opinions are mine.}
I’ve meant to go the Seattle International Dance Festival for years. Then, getting to preview it for the Seattle Times this year, I got really excited about it and wanted to dive in and see a bunch of the performances. But the scheduling challenges that kept me away in the past (June is so hard) made me check my enthusiasm. I went to the free Art on the Fly event and found the program that fit most easily into my schedule. It was Program A of the Inter | National Series on the last weekend of the festival.
Inter | National Series
There are two main tracks to the festival, and maybe next year I can see some of both. But this year, the only program I could attend was part of Inter | National, a series of split bill programs shared by international and domestic (often local) dance artists. On the night I attended, the “local” company was actually based in San Francisco. The international artist was actually a substitute. As often happens with SIDF, the originally programmed artist was unable to perform due to visa issues. After the brochures were printed, they were replaced by an artist from India who is currently based in the U.S. (and therefore already had the legal authorization to perform).
Ishita Mili Global Expose’
Ishita Mili, who fuses traditional Indian dance, street style and contemporary dance, was the replacement for Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts from India. Her group, IMGE, comprising Mili and two other women, went on first. Too often artistic hybrids take on a mosaic effect. Clearly delineated sections show off their respective sources without really fitting together. But IMGE’s Territory, set to music that ranged from A.R. Rahman through Beats Antique to M.I.A., blended the disparate dance styles so thoroughly that felt like something completely new.
Photo c/o SIDF
Imagine a Bollywood movie choreographed by Massive Monkees. Territory incorporated the stomping feet, extended heels, facial expressiveness and intricate hand shapes familiar from traditional Indian dance that Seattle audiences recently saw at ACT’s Devi. But the dancers dropped to the floor and jumped up like parkour traceuses and their shoulders moved like gymnastic dance ribbons. Sometimes they looked like toddlers stomping in puddles; sometimes soldiers sneaking through jungle; sometimes Krishna, if Krishna took up pole dancing and made a cameo appearance in a rap video.
Attitudes of defiance and militance evoked themes of social change and resistance to colonialism, but there was a wide range of emotional expression as well. In some of the more coquettish postures of traditional dance, the performers looked positively sarcastic. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen sarcasm in dance before.
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ka.nei.see | collective
As my gushing last few paragraphs indicate, IMGE were a tough act to follow. In contrast to their maximalism, the seven dancers of ka.nei.see presented a spare contemporary dance with Contradictions of Blue. I found the first movement in particular to be quite beautiful. Almost like watching a foreign movie, the dancing was like watching a ballet told in the language of contemporary dance. The music for this part was particularly lovely as well.
photo c/o SIDF
I have to confess to (an entirely personal) pet peeve that affected my enjoyment of Contradictions of Blue. Dance-running has always kind of irritated me. Something about the jogging pace and perfect right-angle elbows pulls me out of a dance the same way anachronistic slang pulls me out of a story.
Contradictions involved a lot of dance-running. They ran laps around the stage for a really long time, and paired with the simple shorts and sports bras, it reminded me too much of P.E. class. I could see that there was pattern and variation, and possibly meaning, too, in the way that some dancers peeled off to do something else, or changed direction to follow a different leader. But even without my personal prejudice against the ballet jog, it went on a bit too long.
One of the things I like best about contemporary dance is how the different sizes and shapes of the companies require very different partnering from what I’m used to seeing in ballet. With ka.nei.see, this was particularly applicable to lifts. Early in the piece, six of the dancers lift and carry a seventh. It’s weirdly awkward, like they’re about to drop her the whole time. Throughout, the dance was peppered by unusual shapes, like one dancer holding another horizontal to the floor at waist height. Then near the end, the group lifts a single dancer again, but this time, so smoothly and precisely that you almost don’t see how she arrives in a perfect upside-down vertical.
The Festival
Now that I’ve finally been to an SIDF program, I will try harder to see more of the festival next year. With its dual mission of celebrating local dance and introducing audiences to performers from around the world, I think a person could learn a lot just by attending all three weekends.
Seattle International Dance Festival takes place over three weeks in June. Most performances take place on Capitol Hill in Seattle (this year they were at the Broadway Performance Hall and Erickson Theatre).
Single tickets start around $20 and full festival passes cost about $150. The tickets are surprisingly affordable, considering how many of the performers have to travel to be here.
{I attended this performance courtesy of SIDF; the tickets were theirs, but the opinions, as always, are entirely my own.}
I first heard about the Seattle International Dance Festival when I started writing about family arts events. At the time, I couldn’t afford tickets for the whole family, and I didn’t think that I could convince anyone I was qualified it to review it as a “real” arts critic. But the free Art on the Fly event for families seemed like a no-brainer. But year after year, something always came up. Then this year, I got to preview the festival for Seattle Times. It steeled my resolve to finally explore the Seattle International Dance Festival.
Art on the Fly
Art on the Fly is a free, all-ages event that kicks off the Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) each year at Denny Park. (In all the years I’ve lived in Seattle, I don’t think I had ever actually set foot in Denny Park – a former cemetery and one of the cities oldest public green spaces.) Art on the Fly includes free dance classes and performances. It is always the first Saturday of the festival, running from around noon to mid-afternoon, in conjunction with the South Lake Union Saturday Market. This year Art on the Fly was on June 8.
Getting There
June 8 turned out to be almost as challenging as the June Saturdays
in previous years. In the event, the family had to split up to get all the
things done. But my 10-year-old and I finally managed to catch a bus towards
downtown and arrived at the park an hour or so after they started. Lake Union
is never a good place to park, and with all the road construction in the
neighborhood this year, taking the bus was a very good choice.
What We Found
We wandered around the park, where it was hard to tell where
the festival ended a normal Saturday in South Lake Union started. Gold-painted women
danced on a small stage just feet away from a rousing game of ping pong. On the
other side of a shrub border, people were playing badminton.
Along one path a man sat on a speker, playing electric cello. A DJ spun in one corner of the park while a group of people participated in a dance workshop on the grass in another. If I hadn’t known there was a festival going on, I might have mistaken them (and the various groups rehearsing elsewhere in the park) for friends teaching each other a new dance.
What We Did
After we watched the dancers in gold, and wandered around, we passed through the Saturday market. We’d had a late breakfast, so we bypassed most of the food trucks. But my daughter couldn’t resist the taro boba tea in a flashing light bulb cup. It cost as much as buying lunch. We wandered back to the stage area and listened to a set by a woman with a ukulele.
The highlight of the day, for me, was getting to see the Massive Monkees perform. I’ve seen them on video, and got to interview a member a few years ago, but this was the first time seeing them live. Even though this performance was more like an educational demo, with lots of interruptions to explain breakdancing and how the group works, just getting to see how they move was sort of unreal.
Watching breakdance when you’re used to ballet is like watching parkour when you’re used to karate. It almost seems like they are not using the same gravity you are using. I can’t count to four the same speed twice, but it was fun watching the little kids in the audience who couldn’t resist joining in – even before they called for volunteers to come on stage. And watching the little kid who already knew how to dance was just – ah, nothing beats the combination of cuteness and skill.
What I Felt
Wandering around the festival reminded me of lazy summer Saturdays when I was in college and still exploring the city. Back then, I would leave my apartment and just start walking, often ending up in a park I’d never seen before. One time, I stumbled on the Mural concerts; another time I discovered the Peace Concerts. I didn’t always discover a new concert series. Some walks would reveal a flower I’d never seen before or just a street with cool houses. Sometimes I listened to buskers or made friends with panhandlers. Sometimes friends would show up with frisbees or hackey sack.
It’s been years since I had the kind of free time that allowed for an aimless wander. And so Art on the Fly was the first time in years that I felt that sense of neighborhood discovery and community life that drew me to Seattle in the first place.
I’ve attended regular season ballet performances since I was 18. But last season was the first time I attended any of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “extra” events – like performance previews and Ballet 101 lectures. Of those, the extra performances like Season Encore and NEXT STEP were my favorites. This year I couldn’t attend NEXT STEP, but I did get to see the Season Encore. It’s called an encore, but it’s not just a highlights reel of the most popular dances of the past season.
Family Night
PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal describes the Season Encore
performance as “Family Night.” And that’s not far from the truth. The program
always includes some of the biggest hits and most interesting additions to the
repertory from the last season. But it also includes pieces selected by retiring
dancers. Those dancers are honored with a between-dances slide show a lot like
the one celebrating graduating seniors get at high school pep rallies. And there’s
an element of pep rally to it, too, with flowers and endless standing ovations
for the departing dancers. There is a celebratory in-crowd vibe to the whole
event, which really does seem to be more for the dancers and their families
than for paying audience members. But at the same time, by choosing to attend
this non-season performance, regular audience members get to feel like part of
the family.
Retirements
Dancers
This year we said farewell to two principal dancers, Jonathon Poretta and Rachel Foster. Peter Boal talked about his long history with Poretta and Foster’s strength as a dancer. Dances that showcased male dancers were a rarity when I started watching ballet early in his career, but they’ve always been among my favorites. Now I realize that’s at least partly a result of Poretta’s performances back when I didn’t pay attention to who the dancers were. Similarly, my preference for contemporary ballet has a lot to do with Foster’s flawless performances.
Most of us in the auditorium don’t pay a lot of attention to
the behind-the-scenes credits in the program, but if something seems “off” on
stage next season, it might be because there were important retirements
backstage this year, too.
I used to watch Ballet Master Paul Gibson dance when he was a soloist and a principal at PNB. I met him once when I was working on a story about the Nutcracker. He graciously allowed me to sit in on one of his toughest jobs – rehearsing the children who dance the battle between mice and nutcracker soldiers. Gibson always prioritized his job at PNB, but he was also a choreographer.
Backstage
Costume Shop Manager Larae Hascall and Resident Lighting Designer Randall Chiarelli both came out to take their first – and final – bows. My mind raced over the dances in the program, realizing that they showcased striking costumes and dramatic lighting. For a moment I thought that was purposefully honoring these two, just like including ballets that showcased the performances of the retiring dancers. Then I realized – any ballet in the repertory would highlight the talent and skill of these two professionals. I realized with something like a pang of fear that I have never seen a performance at PNB that these two were not involved in.
Theme & Variations was the final piece in the program that closed only a week before. I wrote an entire post about it then, so I don’t have much to add here. I could add that seeing it at the beginning of the evening instead of as a finale gave it a slightly different color. And even if I can’t always consciously identify the differences, I always enjoy seeing different dancers interpret the same roles. During the season program, I saw Jerome Tisserand and Lesley Rausch perform; on this night it was Laura Tisserand and Dylan Wald.
The Piano Dance (pas de deux) Music: Gyorgy Ligeti Choreography: Paul Gibson
I was certain that I had never seen Paul Gibson’s The Piano Dance before. In fact, I could only remember seeing one of Gibson’s ballets, and I remembered it as being very neoclassical and pretty. Then, when I heard the first chords of Ligeti’s music, I remembered the whole thing. I hadn’t seen it in at least a decade, but every moment of the pas de deux evoked an “Ah yes, that’s right,” response. The stark lighting and red leotards. The spiky, spiderlike movements. An atmosphere that built ominous tension, only to instantly deflate it with humor. It was a truly unique work, and all the more enjoyable in contrast to what I thought I knew about Gibson’s choreography.
Rassemblement (pas de deux) Music: Toto Bissainthe Choreography: Nacho Duato
Only
a few days earlier, I was telling my husband about one of the dances in Theme
& Variations and he was trying to remember if he had seen it before. “Oh,
was it the one with…?” and he lifted his elbows and dropped his head like he
was hanging on a scarecrow.
“No,
no, no,” I replied. “You’re thinking of Rassemblement.” I don’t tell
this story to make us sound like ballet experts, because we’re not. It’s just
that Rassemblement was one of the very first contemporary ballets from
outside the Balanchine lineage that we ever saw. And, to put it bluntly, it
blew our fucking minds. It was the first time we ever rushed to our programs to
learn the name of the choreographer and the ballet so that we could remember it
later and be sure to see it again.
Choreographer
Nacho Duato is special for Rachel Foster, too. She danced in the ensemble when
PNB performed this piece 12 years ago, but on her final night as a performer,
she chose to learn a new role and dance the final duet.
Bacchus Music: Oliver Davis Choreography: Matthew Neenan
Bacchus premiered at Director’s Choice earlier in the season. Seeing it for the second time around, I was a less put off by the men’s costumes and didn’t waste any energy on metaphors. This time I could just enjoy the dancing as unreservedly as I enjoyed the music the first time I saw it.
After the Rain pas de deux Music: Arvo Pärt Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
I hate crying in public. After the Rain is so beautiful and heartbreaking it’s hard not to cry, though. Especially when it’s a favorite of the ballerina dancing it and it’s the last time she’s dancing it and she made you cry the first time you saw it, too.
Silent Ghost Music: Dustin Hamman, King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo
Part of this season’s All Premiere program, Silent Ghost is a few of my favorite things: I love the music and the choreographer. I saw Rachel Foster when it premiered, and she danced in it again at the Season Encore. So even though I love Silent Ghost, mostly what I remember is the endless standing ovation she got for this, the last performance of her PNB career.
Jonathan Poretta chose Prodigal Son as his farewell performance, and no wonder. Remember when I mentioned ballet showcasing male dancers? This biblical tale choreographed in 1929 was one of the only ones available until recent years. Like The Piano Song and Rassemblement, it’s one that redefined ballet for me, and has really stuck with me, even years after seeing it. It was probably Poretta on stage the only other time I saw it, and then as now, I was struck by how ugly it is.
But it’s also captivating in the way
that it uses strength and brutish movements to communicate emotions; so
different from the sterile pantomime of most biblical retellings. What I didn’t
remember was that even this male-focused dance includes one of the most dramatic
– and lengthy – en pointe solos in the history of dance. My younger self was
also less sensitive to the brutal beating that Poretta’s knees must take as he
crawls and stumbles in the role. Yes, that was makeup on his knees, but it
would be real blood if I tried it.
The middle of the 20th century was such a retrograde era, those of us born in its wake don’t always realize how much creative exploration really took part in the first part of that century. Prodigal Son (like The Moor’s Pavane) still looks fresh and unexpected, nearly a century later.
Last Bow
For years I’ve said that Director’s Choice is my favorite program of the season. Lately, All Premiere has been pretty special, too. Season Encore doesn’t stand on its own like those two; part of what makes it so wonderful is the shared history among audience and dancers of experiencing all the other programs, in the season that is ending, and for many seasons before. But as family nights go, this one is favorite.
{I attended Season Encore compliments of PNB. Opinions are entirely my own.}
