PNB@Home: Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 2020 Virtual Season

After Covid cancelled half a season of Pacific Northwest Ballet performances, and Seattle Dance Collective put out a great virtual summer season, I bought season tickets to PNB@Home without paying much attention to what it involved. I just knew I wanted to support the company and make sure it was still around when “real” ballet was possible again. But then I saw the first program of the virtual season, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it just as much as a night at McCaw Hall. So now I’m taking a closer look at the rest of the season.

How PNB@Home Works

The season is not, as I initially feared, simply videos taken at past performances (although it does include some of that). I think one of the reasons people don’t think dance translates to film very well is that so much recorded dance is just videotaped stage performances. Those are fine if you just want to know what a dance looks like, but they offer none of the arts experience people want from either a live performance or a video.

But it’s not (except for Rep 4) the same as Seattle Dance Collective’s summer season, Continuum, either. That season comprised dances that were specifically choreographed to be filmed. Some of them even worked better as film than as dance. But they all were a hybrid of contemporary ballet and cinematography.

PNB@Home is a season of new performances of contemporary ballet that is, mostly, already in the PNB repertory. The dancers perform under physical distancing protocols on the McCaw Hall stage with live music. As with SDC, only dancers that are already living together or in a pod rehearse and perform together. Rather than a full orchestra, the music is performed by soloists or a small number of masked musicians spread out in the orchestra pit.

These performances are recorded and released to subscribers online. The videos are only available for five days, but you can watch them as many times as you want during that window.  

Extra Extra

Everyone thinks of a digital subscription as “less than.” So arts organizations are doing their best to give audiences more. A normal mixed rep ballet program would include three complete short ballets. But a digital mixed rep program will include excerpts – a sort of highlights reel – from a much larger number of ballets. It’s the bibimbap contrasting a steak dinner. For example, Rep 1 of the digital season included pieces of between 8-11 ballets (depending on whether you count Jewels as one long 3-part ballet or three short ballets).

Another way that PNB is giving subscribers more is with digital extras. There are contents of the program booklet are available digitally, as is Doug Fullington’s pre-performance talk. Using Rep 1 as an example again, there is also a “Five Minute Call” backstage video in which the performers talk about the program; an interview with one of the soloists; and an interview with the choreographer of one of the ballets. There is even an extra dance performance, a reinterpretation of one of the program pieces filmed outdoors at Discovery Park and in the studio instead of onstage.

Video vs. Reality  

I’m starting to think of the difference between recordings and live performances like the difference between cheap seats and expensive ones. No matter where you sit, you see the performance. But balcony seats highlight the arrangement of dancers on the stage. Main floor seats let you see individual dancer’s movements more clearly. The camera forces your attention to particular things instead of allowing the eye to wander. But it also illuminates details you can never get close enough to see in real life, like tiny shifts in facial expressions, or the way a toe shoe bends as a dancer steps.

It’s no substitute for being there. But it’s also good in its own way, and I’m starting to get used to the advantages of video. I can’t wait to see ballet live in the theater again. But when I do, I’m going to expect some virtual content to come with my subscription.

PNB@Home Season Summary

Rep 1 is already over, and I blogged it pretty intensively. But here is what PNB has lined up for the rest of the season.

Rep 2

November 12 – 16, 2020
World Premiere
Choreography: Penny Saunders

Waterbaby Bagatelles (Excerpt)
Music: 20th-century bagatelles
Choreography: Twyla Tharp

Arms
Music: Luis Resto
Choreography: Susan Marshall

Ghost Variations (World Premiere)
Music: Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann
Choreography: Jessica Lang

Bonus subscription benefits include Penny Saunders’ film Brown Eyes, an interview with Twyla Tharp by Peter Boal, and the world premiere of a site-specific work choreographed by Amanda Morgan.  

Roméo et Juliette

(archival recording)
February 11 – 15, 2021
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot

Bonus subscription benefits include Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story Suite, introduced by Justin Peck, choreographer of the new West Side Story movie remake.

Rep 4

April 1 – 5, 2021
World Premiere
Music: John Adams
Choreography: Donald Byrd

World Premiere
Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon
World Premiere
Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo

Bonus subscription benefits include Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump, and an interview with Mr. Cerrudo.  

Coppélia

(archival recording)
May 6 – 10, 2021
Music: Léo Delibes
Choreography: Alexandra Danilova and George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust (after Petipa)

Bonus subscription benefits include introduction by former PNB principal dancer Carla Körbes, an interview with Alexandra Danilova by Edward Villella (“Live from Lincoln Center,” 1978), interview with designer Roberta Guidi di Bagno, and archival release of George Balanchine’s Serenade introduced by Francia Russell.

REP 6

June 10 – 14, 2021
Silent Ghost
(archival recording)
Music: Dustin Hamman, King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Ólafur Arnalds, and Nils Frahm
Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo

Pictures at an Exhibition
(archival recording)
Music: Modest Mussorgsky
Choreography: Alexei Ratmansky

World Premiere
Music: Oliver Davis
Choreography: Edwaard Liang

Bonus subscription benefits include an interview with Alexei Ratmansky by Wendy Whelan, an archival release of Edwaard Liang’s Distant Cries, and a curator-led tour of Abstract Expressionist work at Seattle Art Museum.