Seattle Dance Collective Bridges the Distance With Home

Against all odds, Seattle Dance Collective is back for a second season with five new works. The first of these, Home by Penny Saunders, premiered on July 2. It was as artistically engaging as its backstory is bizarre. And in contrast to the challenges that had to be overcome to create it, there has never been a ballet with lower barriers for its audience. Home is free to view online.

Seattle Dance Collective

One of the highlights of my summer last year was the debut of Seattle Dance Collective, a new modern ballet company founded by two of my favorite Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers. PNB principals Noelani Pantastico and James Yoichi Moore created Seattle Dance Collective as a small, summer season contemporary ballet company mostly comprising PNB colleagues, but also including two dancers from Whim W’him. They presented one thrilling program at the Vashon Center for the Arts, and promised a new one for 2020.

Continuum – Bridging the Distance

The pandemic started midwinter, when they were still in the early stages of developing Program Two. They were nimble enough to adapt, and shifted away from planning a single live program for one weekend in July. Instead, this year they are presenting Continuum – Bridging the Distance, a virtual program of five new works developed under physical distancing requirements. One new piece will be posted each Thursday in July, free for online viewing.

Each piece was choreographed specifically for this program, with the knowledge that it would be viewed as a video rather than on a stage. Rehearsals took place during the lockdown, so dancers had to work with choreographers via Zoom to learn their parts. Only dancers who were already sheltering in place together would be physically present at rehearsals. At the actual filming, the videographer maintained distance and wore a mask to record the performance.

Home

Choreography: Penny Saunders
Music: Michael Wall
Dancers: Elle Macy & Dylan Wald

Drawing inspiration from audio recordings of the dancers, Elle Macy and Dylan Wald, this vignette celebrates the pure delight two individuals can find in the world when they view it through the lens of love.

The first piece to premiere was Penny Saunders’ Home. SDC performed a piece by Saunders last year, Sur Le Fil. Elle Macy and Dylan Wald, who performed Home, also performed in that one. I’m pretty sure that Sur Le Fil was the first time I saw her choreography. But it immediately felt comfortable and familiar to me, with an interesting vocabulary of movement and a way making you feel things directly while also encouraging your brain to look for meaning.

Home had that same kind of familiar yet surprising feeling. In many ways, it was similar to After the Rain – two dancers, similar pacing and energy level, a very internal focus. But where After the Rain feels heartbroken and bruised, Home felt comfortable and quietly optimistic, almost nurturing.

It was performed outdoors, in a grassy area among trees. Like Sur Le Fil, the score for Home used a combination of music and field recordings. In this case, the music was by Michael Wall. The recordings were of the dancers interviewing each other. The questions, provided by Saunders, were about how they were dealing with the stay at home order.

The setting, title, and dialogue together create the impression that although these two people are confined in a small space together, love expands that space to contain the whole world. (Based on the conversations in the making-of video, that’s not quite what they were going for. But that’s what I got out of it.)   

{Also, it’s totally worth watching the behind the scenes video just for their dog, who is so very helpful.}

Viewing Home at Home

Sometimes watching recorded dance is really frustrating. Whole stage shots feel flat and sterile, but cameras often cut away from what you most want to see. Home was written to be recorded. Watching it on a screen instead of on a stage felt much more natural than other ballet videos. The filmmaker worked with the choreographer and the dancers in advance to determine which parts of the dance would be viewed from which angles. The film was part of the ballet, rather than a separate creation.  

The dialogue was interesting, but that made it distracting. It was a little louder than the music, and I had a hard time listening to the words and watching the dance with equal attention. I am not familiar with Michael Wall. But the music reminded me of Nils Frahm’s Felt, which is one of my favorite albums. My husband, who was watching with me, had the same thought.

So, since we were at home, we watched Home again, this time with the sound off, while listening to Felt. And my god, it was perfect. The music shifted with the changes in camera angle. A piano trill that only occurred once was timed to the only lift in the ballet. The credits even started to roll at a shift in the music. It really seemed like the ballet had been written for the first two tracks of Felt.

We created our own viewing experience. In a way, it sort of felt like we were collaborators, too. And that was an experience that could only have happened with a virtual ballet.  

You can watch Home embedded below, on the SDC website, or on Vimeo.

HOME by Penny Saunders from Seattle Dance Collective on Vimeo.

{Continuum – Bridging the Distance is free for all viewers, a gift from the artists to the audience during a difficult time. But if you enjoy the program and have the means, please consider donating to Seattle Dance Collective so that the show can go on again next summer.}