Pacific Northwest Ballet, headed by Artistic Director Peter Boal, began their season with an exquisite program of two European dancemakers on September 22 thru October 1, 2023, It began with the brilliant Czechoslovakian born (1947) Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort (Little Death) and Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) set to the extraordinary music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Piano Concerto in A Major, adagio, and C Major, andante and his Sechs Tänze). The program ended with Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman’s Cacti. Ekman’s work presented an almost non-stop fanciful circus of moments performed by 16 formidable PNB dancers. The music by Franz Joseph Hayden was embellished by the “Cac-tets,” a pit less group of orchestral musicians who moved around and through the antics onstage to the delight of the audience.
Each of the evening’s contributions stand on their own. Their luminous humanity, quizzical zaniness, and the aesthetic beauty and power captures the selfless work of the company, its creators and supporters. The two Kylián pieces, though done by the same creator, differ superbly from each other. And with the PNB company of outstanding dancers it allows the audience to sit back and know that the artistry and purpose of each piece will surprise and delight the senses and intellect.
Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Dammiel Cruz-Garrido and corps de ballet dancer Clara Ruf Maldonado in Jiri Kylian’s “Petite Mort” – Photo © Angela Sterling
As background for the first piece PNB’s historian and musicologist Doug Fullington explains that Petite Mort means “Little Death” and is a European euphemistic expression for sex; a fact which can be traced as far back as the Renaissance and Medieval times. With that concept in mind, the piece begins in silence with the forms of six near-nude male dancers; Dylan Calahan, Mark Cuddihee, Dammiel Cruz-Garrido, Lucien Postlewaite, James Kirby Rogers, and Dylan Wald. They stand with rapiers under foot, and a pas de deux, of sorts. What then ensues is the men moving into an intricate partnership with their foils to Mozart’s sumptuous work.
A stunning transition under black silk introduces the females, Madison Rayn Abeo, Ashton Edwards, Clara Ruf Maldonado Angelica Generosa Cecilia Iliesiu, and Elizabeth Murphy. They sudden appear on the floor in skin-toned corsets and briefs in front of their men… and it begins! A sensuality of form and intimacy that moves in twos, threes and full company. It presents an exquisite languorous foreplay with musicality and movement that becomes an aesthetic feast. Hinting at the boudoir, Six women in 18th Century charcoal black colored French gowns appear on castors. They float in, gliding forward and then side in smooth succession, soon perching to rest. With just a hint of bodies, they escape the burden of corset and dress, and resuming their positions float off and disappear in the darkness.
Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Angelica Generosa and Lucien Postlewaite in Jiri Kylian’s “Petite Mort” – Photo © Angela Sterling
Like apparitions, the pairing of Angelica Generosa and Lucien Postlewaite’s melt into a remarkable Pas de deux that takes ones breath away with its lyricism and sensuality, their bodies work effortlessly together. Generoso and Postlewaite are followed by Iliesiu and Rogers, Murphy and Wald’s lovely couplings, and soon all vanish into the night and just as fleeting as they began, disappear. Thus ending a dream one never wants to end.
Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Joh Morrill in Jiri Kylian’s “Sechs Tänze” (Six Dances) – Photo © Angela Sterling
After a short musical interlude, Mozart’s divertimento in D, No I Allegro is a perfect bridge to Sechs Tänze (Six Dances).
And with that, the curtain ascends to reveal a line of concerned, rather stunned couples, a bit askew in their wheat-colored dresses and nickers. The women’s disheveled hair thrown up on their head and men wearing white powdered wigs are posing silent and a bit off kilter. They decide to push back the wall of light and escape offstage, save for Elle Macy and Miles Pertl whose charm and horseplay resembles a Swiss slap dance. Skirts twirling, and wigs flying, Macy and Pertl’s merrymaking, is joined by Leta Biasucci and Ryan Cardea who, in perfect slap stick style, are bopped on the head by Pertl and fall to the ground. It’s Pertl’s cue to exit and the grounded dancers with full body hops from the floor continue pulling and tugging at each other when a supine lassie on a gurney comes floating by with a rapier stuck securely in her middle. This is only a taste of the adventures represented in this wonderful buffoonery. Something Mozart would have appreciated and certainly his resilience was what inspired and attracted Kylián to his life and music.
Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Alexander Ekman’s “Cacti” – Photo © Angela Sterling
Sweden’s Alexander Ekman, a hyphenated director-choreographer-set designer-ballet dancer and critic-of-critics attempts to show his metal, or rather his prickly metaphors in Cacti. In his youthful concern not to be defined by the critics at large, he creates an allusive, over-long piece that defies definition using the best-of-the-best dancers, musicians, and music to deliver either a piece of genius, or the Emperor has no clothes. It remains to be seen. In its youthful exuberance, Cacti is filled with whimsy, allusion, cleverness of design, lighting and movement. It appears, however, to have a message that’s trying to find itself. It focuses mainly on delivery as opposed to message. There are many questions. The builder of the piece appears to want to say something with its ongoing “voice.” But to the audience one might ask, What is it saying…and why do we care? Art, after all, is the quality and application of the human spirit’s imagination and communication.
Pacific Northwest Ballet soloists Christian Poppe and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan in Alexander Ekman’s Cacti – Photo © Angela Sterling
Ekman’s choreography in spite of the look of the piece; exquisite lighting by Tom Visser; the fun outbursts, whispers, and athleticism of the amazing 16 dancers; the music by Franz Joseph Hayden delivered by extraordinary musicians, the “Cact-ets: Alexander Grimes, Principal violist, Michael Jinsoo Lim, Associate Concertmaster, Jennifer Caine Provine, and Principal Cellist Page Smith, who got right into the fray with the dancers, still made this piece often cryptic and chaotic. However, one of the delights is a duet, a “rehearsal conversation” by Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Christian Poppe which, between lifts and turns, tells much about their relationship.
PNB, with each new program is fast becoming one of our national treasures, which has all the elements of the most important companies around the world. It shows its excellence in all it does, and we are grateful that it exists to allow such fine artists to have the opportunities afforded them. Congratulations to the funders who make this possible, the leadership, Peter Boal, Artistic Director; Ellen Walker, Executive Director; Emil de Cou, Music Director and Principal Conductor; and the amazing dancer/artists and supporters of PNB for their excellence.
To learn more about Pacific Northwest Ballet, please visit their website.
Written by Joanne DiVito for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers (l-r) Miles Pertl, Leah Terada, James Yoichi Moore, and Elle Macy in Jiri Kylian’s Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) – Photo © Angela Sterling
