Tag Archive Twyla Tharp

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Rep 2 of PNB’s Digital Season

I almost didn’t watch Rep 2, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s second program of the 2020-2021 digital season. It wasn’t because I didn’t like Rep 1 – quite the opposite. It’s just that Thursday was one of those days when most of what I tried to do didn’t get accomplished and everything I did accomplish took twice as much time and effort as it should have. Maybe it was the crash following a post-election high, but all I wanted to do was go to bed early after watching a feel-good K-drama with a too-tall pour of rye. But I remembered how good Rep 1 was. So I tuned in to the ballet instead and was reminded once again that art is more uplifting than escapist television – even when it’s on the tv.

PNB soloists Elle Macy and Dylan Wald in Jessica Lang’s Ghost Variations, Photo © Lindsay Thomas c/o PNB
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Her Story at Pacific Northwest Ballet

“You never take me to the modern ballets,” my 8-year-old complained. “I only get to go to the story ballets.” Was she right? Conventional wisdom tells us to introduce kids to ballet through story, but I’ve never really bought it. After all, little kids are far more likely to spontaneously erupt into abstract dance than adults are, so why would they have a harder time understanding it? But as a reviewer, I do tend to take the kid closest to the age that readers are likely to want to bring, so maybe my artistic younger daughter had been unfairly sequestered in the story ballet ghetto? Fortunately, Pacific Northwest Ballet came to rescue with Her Story, a mixed rep of contemporary ballet choreographed by three of the world’s leading choreographers. The title implied a feminist theme, but the only link between the three pieces is that the choreographers are all women, and all three pieces are magnificent. Read More

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Ticket Season, Part Two: Pacific Northwest Ballet

16-17-renew“I love tickets!” squeals Cameron Diaz’s character in the first Charlie’s Angels movie. (And why has no one ever made a gif of that?) It’s supposed to illustrate what an eccentric character she is, but I understand completely. I love tickets. And spring is ticket season. Season-ticket season, to be precise. All of the arts organizations announce their upcoming seasons, tickets go on sale, and I spend hours each spring planning what I will be doing on Saturday nights all next winter. I’ve already written about next season’s offerings at Seattle Opera. Now let’s talk about ballet.  Read More

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Twyla Tharp, A I R at PNB

air twyla bookletThe seasons changed this weekend. Friday night was my last summer music festival. Saturday afternoon Pacific Northwest Ballet kicked off the fall arts season with a mixed program choreographed by Twyla Tharp. Like Vin Diesel says in xXx, “I live for this shit.” It is no accident that my house is exactly 3 miles from Seattle Center. Google Maps claims it takes 11 minutes from my driveway to the McCaw Hall parking garage. So when I left my house an hour before AIR Twyla, it was only because my date for the performance – my 9-year-old daughter – was getting antsy. It was a good thing we left early, because it took us over an hour to get there.

We slipped into the empty back row to see the PNB premiere of artist-in-residence Twyla Tharp’s “Brief Fling,” already in progress. I find it disconcerting to miss even the first few seconds of a performance. Not so my kid. Moments after we sat down, she stage-whispered, “I love this one already!”

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