Pacific Northwest Ballet, "Rep 4"
Mar. 20th, 2022 12:21 pmYesterday, Omaha and I went to see the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Rep 4” in which they do contemporary dance pieces. They’re still requiring vaccination cards at the door, masks at all times except when taking a sip of wine, forbidden wine in the auditorium again, and they’ve taken away the coffee service. I approve of the vaccination and masks, but if they're going to let us have wine, they should let us have coffee as well.
There were two older pieces, one of which I had seen before, and two debuts.
The one piece I had seen before was Crystal Pite’s Plot Point, which is an involved piece that every writer would find familiar. The story is something of a combination of a noir spy thriller and a domestic infidelity melodrama but what’s interesting is that there are two people on the stage for every character: someone dressed to play the role, and their white-costumed doppleganger wearing a mask and headpiece that hides their identity. Pite has the dancers interact in a way that shows how the “plot point” set out in the rough draft has the character do something that is in or out of character, and how the character sometimes defies what the writer set out in the rough draft. It’s an interesting piece.
On the other hand, David Parson’s Caught is absolutely magical. Using an completely darkened theater, powerful strobe lights, and a sensor on the solo dancer it creates a superhuman effect: as she dances the strobes only go off at the height of her jumps, leaps, and other moves, creating the illusion that she never touches the ground. She circles the entire stage with her legs in a split, as if floating on a magical carpet; she seems to walk two feet above the ground across the stage, and other astonishing moments that could only be captured by a strobe light and the human eye’s afterimage processing. After every physically demanding movement she would appear by magic in the middle, lit by the conic beam of an overhead flood, implying that she hadn’t moved at all, but you could see how heavily she was breathing. It is a genuinely new kind of dance, and it was a highly emotional privilege to watch it. The video does not capture how fantastic it was, and PNB Corps du Ballet principal Angelica Generosa was far better, far more physically capable even, than the dancer in the video.
Mineko Williams’ Before I Was says it’s about growing into adulthood, but I took something different away from it. Her last piece, The Trees, The Trees, which I saw in 2019, was quite good, and this one is as well. She has more vocalists on the stage this time, again singing a kind of poem, as the dancers move and gyre in front of what looks like the outline of a suburban house. It seemed to me that the story was much more one about the difficulty of maintaining a connection, both to yourself and to your spouse, as you struggle to raise children.
And finally Justin Peck’s The Times are Racing was physically demanding and fun to watch, but it didn’t communicate much. It was great, and the dancers were all on and fabulous. I wish it had spoken more to me, though. On the other hand, it may have given me a new favorite musician.
There were two older pieces, one of which I had seen before, and two debuts.
The one piece I had seen before was Crystal Pite’s Plot Point, which is an involved piece that every writer would find familiar. The story is something of a combination of a noir spy thriller and a domestic infidelity melodrama but what’s interesting is that there are two people on the stage for every character: someone dressed to play the role, and their white-costumed doppleganger wearing a mask and headpiece that hides their identity. Pite has the dancers interact in a way that shows how the “plot point” set out in the rough draft has the character do something that is in or out of character, and how the character sometimes defies what the writer set out in the rough draft. It’s an interesting piece.
On the other hand, David Parson’s Caught is absolutely magical. Using an completely darkened theater, powerful strobe lights, and a sensor on the solo dancer it creates a superhuman effect: as she dances the strobes only go off at the height of her jumps, leaps, and other moves, creating the illusion that she never touches the ground. She circles the entire stage with her legs in a split, as if floating on a magical carpet; she seems to walk two feet above the ground across the stage, and other astonishing moments that could only be captured by a strobe light and the human eye’s afterimage processing. After every physically demanding movement she would appear by magic in the middle, lit by the conic beam of an overhead flood, implying that she hadn’t moved at all, but you could see how heavily she was breathing. It is a genuinely new kind of dance, and it was a highly emotional privilege to watch it. The video does not capture how fantastic it was, and PNB Corps du Ballet principal Angelica Generosa was far better, far more physically capable even, than the dancer in the video.
Mineko Williams’ Before I Was says it’s about growing into adulthood, but I took something different away from it. Her last piece, The Trees, The Trees, which I saw in 2019, was quite good, and this one is as well. She has more vocalists on the stage this time, again singing a kind of poem, as the dancers move and gyre in front of what looks like the outline of a suburban house. It seemed to me that the story was much more one about the difficulty of maintaining a connection, both to yourself and to your spouse, as you struggle to raise children.
And finally Justin Peck’s The Times are Racing was physically demanding and fun to watch, but it didn’t communicate much. It was great, and the dancers were all on and fabulous. I wish it had spoken more to me, though. On the other hand, it may have given me a new favorite musician.
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