FOIL: Locally Sourced by PNB

The second program of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s season is Locally Sourced, a mixed rep comprising three world premieres by local choreographers. The first ballet in the program was F O I L by Eva Stone.  

Local

Stone has deep local roots. She moved to Seattle and started the Stone Dance Collective in 1995. She founded and still runs the annual contemporary dance festival CHOP SHOP: Bodies of Work. And she is on the faculty at Pacific Northwest Ballet School.   

Feminist

As a female choreographer, any ballet by Stone would be inherently feminist. But Stone makes F O I L actively so by engaging an all-female creative team behind the scenes and using music by five significant but rarely performed female composers: Nadia Boulanger, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Francesca Lebrun, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Clara Schumann. Even the dancers were mostly female – only four male dancers appeared in two of the five movements.

Lighting the Back

Stone didn’t explain anything about the ballet in the program. The only context she provided was a lovely anonymous poem:

And so she built the house with a steady hand, room by room, until the walls held tight every secret of the Universe, and the neighbours, their hands pressed to the glass, watchful of the radiance within.

That could be appreciation for women’s creative power, but it could also be a celebration of quality lighting. The ballet itself did seem preoccupied with illumination. The sets consisted of elaborate crystal chandeliers suspended above the dancers on the stage. They rose and settled in different combinations throughout the piece, just as the dancers did.

Light is useless without something to shine on, and F O I L seemed to be about illuminating the things we usually don’t see – metaphorically, like the work of the female artists behind more famous men. Or literally, as Seattle Times pointed out, in a movement that only showed us the muscles of the dancers’ backs.  

F O I L

As a wordy girl, I look to titles to guide my interpretation. But F O I L didn’t give me much to work from – except that foil is often shiny, so maybe it’s more to do with light. Neither did the titles of the five movements: Now, Be Still, Hold, Wait, Exhale. Be Still was the movement where the dancers mostly stood in place. Was Hold the one with the unusual group lifts? Maybe they’r just shorthand Friends-style “The One Where…” titles. I’m sure they were chosen for a reason, and I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone who has seen it.

Though I was thwarted in finding any sort of narrative or message in F O I L, it was a very satisfying piece to watch. It was unapologetically pretty, with a feeling of luxury only partly imparted by the fancy fixtures. I’m glad I finally got to see something by Eva Stone. And now that I have, I might have to confront my fear of the Eastside to go see more.

F O I L Details

World Premiere
Music: Nadia Boulanger, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Francesca Lebrun, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann
Choreography: Eva Stone
Costume Design: Melanie Burgess
Lighting Design: Amiya Brown
Assistant to the Choreographer: Sarena Fishman Jimenez

Performance Details

November 8 – 17, 2019

Marion Oliver McCaw Hall

Remaining performances:

November 14, 15 & 16 at 7:30 PM
November 17 at 1:00 PM

Tickets ($37-$190) are available online.

Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to show times at McCaw Hall.

Cast I Saw

Noelani Pantastico*
Juliet Prine*
Leah Merchant*
Abby Jayne Deangelo*
Margaret Mullin*
Cecilia Iliesiu*
Emma Love Suddarth*
Luther DeMyer*
Ezra Thomson*
Steven Loch*
Lucien Postlewaite*

indicates first time in role (obviously, since it was a world premiere) *