It’s been a few days now and I’m still thinking about Little mortal jump, the opening piece in the Emergence mixed-rep ballet I saw at Pacific Northwest Ballet last weekend. That’s odd, because it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it. When I look back at what I wrote then, it’s obvious that I liked it. But somehow that first viewing faded in my memory and I completely had the wrong idea about it going in for the second view.

Constructed Memory

As I wrote yesterday, I remembered the wit in Little mortal jump. The popular music, the vaudeville aesthetic, the Velcro-covered boxes. But memory is just a construct, and mine had left out some important pieces of information. I had forgotten that however eclectic the musical credits look, most of the score consists of heartbreaking, yearning violin. I had forgotten the imperceptible shift in mood that occurs during the piece. What starts out playful ends with aching feelings and a sense that something profound has taken place.

When one dancer runs towards a bright, white light, another dancer holds her back. It reminded me of a joke my old roommate used to make (and I remembered thinking of it the last time, too) “Move away from the light!” But the reference is accurate, if in bad taste. In my memory, the “Little” had usurped the “Mortal.” In the moment, it was the other way around.

Significance

Artistic Director Peter Boal described Little mortal jump this way:

It is well-crafted, moody, an atmospheric, and then, without warning, it makes you cry.

It’s true but I still can’t figure out why. There doesn’t seem to be a narrative thread. No one dies, no one gets left alone. Even the little vignettes that seem to tell a story are not too dark. When dancers get hung up on the Velcro walls, they peeled off their clothes like molting instars and stepped down. It’s a clever, if unintended foreshadowing of Emergence and probably a metaphor for personal growth. But it’s not a reason to cry.

The first dancer to appear in the piece does jump off the stage into the orchestra pit. I only connected that early moment in the piece to the titular mortal jump because I saw the same stage trick last month when a character in Village Theatre’s String tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of a 200-story building. In String, the character is immortal; in Little mortal jump, probably not. But the jump gets a laugh from the ballet audience. It feels witty, not mortal. The tears come later.

The title feels like a reference to la petite mort, and the dance does deal in coupled relationships. But the emotional weight is too much for that to be the whole story. Perhaps the “jump” refers to the leap of faith that loving another person requires. It’s a leap we take every day, but the stakes often feel like life and death.

Little Boxes

Whatever is actually going on in Little mortal jump, the big black boxes are probably the key, like the monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But I never figured out what that was about, either. The boxes in Little mortal jump frame scenes. Sometimes they block paths – or create them. They stop dancers like fly paper. But if there’s a metaphor, I’ve missed it. The subconscious mind registers the emotional power of the undercurrents in the dance while the thinking mind focuses on the movement.

Movement

Even if there wasn’t some powerful emotional juju happening, Little mortal jump would be a delight to watch. I’m hard-pressed to describe it. It’s not like the time I saw a modern dance company and witnessed an entirely new vocabulary of movement. It’s not just a matter of different steps. It mostly looks like ballet – although it sure ain’t Petipas. There’s an elasticity to the movements and a different sort of connection between the dancers. But at the same time, there is also a playfulness that intrigues and delights. No one else would ever think to move their bodies the way Cerrudo has.

When we were younger, talking with my musician husband about music was always irritating. He’d say things like, “That’s because they used a major fifth chord. That always builds drama.” Or something like that. After attending the Ballet 101 lecture, I’m quite certain that a dancer could similarly explain that how the dancers held hands or bent their knees explains the emotional resonance of Little mortal jump.

Whatever. It still gives me all the feels.

Tickets

Remaining performances:

April 19–21 at 7:30 pm

April 22 at 1:00 pm

Tickets ($37-$187) may be purchased online. Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to each performance at McCaw Hall – these tickets are half-price for students and seniors; $5 for TeenTix members.

Just the Facts

Little mortal jump

Music: Beirut (“A Call to Arms” and “La Banlieue”), Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire (“Beware”), Alexandre Desplat (“See How They Fall—Dans Les Champs De Ble” and “A Self-made Hero—Theme de Heroes”), Philip Glass “Glassworks/Analog: Orange Mountain Music Archive: Closing”), Max Richter (“The Haunted Ocean 5” and “November”), Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan (“Fawn”)
Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo
Staging: Pablo Piantino
Scenic Design: Alejandro Cerrudo
Costume Design: Branimira Ivanova
Lighting Design: Michael Korsch
Running Time: 26 minutes
Premiere: March 15, 2012; Hubbard Street
Dance Chicago PNB Premiere: March 18, 2016
Cast I saw:

Elizabeth Murphy
Dylan Wald
Elle Macy
Jerome Tisserand
Leah Merchant
Ezra Thomson*
Angelica Generosa*
Price Suddarth*
Guillaume Basso*
Henry Cotton*

*First time in role.