Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Season Encore Performance


Recommended Posts

Per the Saturday matinee I saw today, here are the pieces scheduled so far for the Season Encore:

After the Rain ppd

Apollo

Black Swan ppd

Carousel (A Dance)

Prodigal Son ppd

Romeo et Juliette Balcony ppd

Coppelia excerpts

Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fee'

A Million Little Kisses To My Skin

Link to comment

Per the Saturday matinee I saw today, here are the pieces scheduled so far for the Season Encore:

After the Rain ppd

Apollo

Black Swan ppd

Carousel (A Dance)

Prodigal Son ppd

Romeo et Juliette Balcony ppd

Coppelia excerpts

Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fee'

A Million Little Kisses To My Skin

I think it's also excerpts from Divertimento and Kisses, though I would be happy to see all of both of them!

Link to comment

Peter Boal said in the Friday Q/A that it was all of Carousel and Apollo, and the rest were excerpts, and that is how it's described on the back of the program insert as well, and the date is given as 10 June. It says that tickets are on sale now for subscribers, and general public tickets will go up 24 April, so perhaps that's why it isn't on the website yet.

Link to comment

When I went to the box office last weekend, tickets were not on sale yet, but on Saturday, when I went to buy tickets to this coming weekends' "Apollo"s, I asked again, and they were on sale in person, even before I identified myself as a subscriber (but I may have looked familiar to the box office person).

(I asked last weekend because the Seattle Times article about Postlewaite leaving said to get tickets asap.)

Link to comment

Here's the Press Release:

Season Encore Performance

Performance to include works by Balanchine, Wheeldon, Maillot, and more!

Featuring the mighty PNB Orchestra.

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Sunday, June 10, 2012 – 6:30 pm

Marion Oliver McCaw Hall

321 Mercer Street, Seattle Center

Seattle, WA 98109

SEATTLE, WA – The curtain will come down on Pacific Northwest Ballet’s highly-praised 39th season with the annual Season Encore Performance, a crowd-pleasing reprise of some of PNB’s greatest hits. A thrilling evening of rousing repertory selections and awe-inspiring performances, the program will feature PNB’s entire Company, along with the PNB Orchestra under the baton of Music Director Emil de Cou. Departing principal dancer Lucien Postlewaite’s remarkable career with PNB will be celebrated with selections ranging from George Balanchine’s Prodigal Son to Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette.The Season Encore Performance will also be the audience’s chance to offer a fond farewell to departing corps de ballet dancer Abby Relic. The Season Encore Performance will be presented one night only, Sunday, June 10 at 6:30 pm at McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday, April 23 and may be purchased exclusively through the PNB Box Office (206.441.2424, online at pnb.org, or in person at 301 Mercer Street at Seattle Center.)

“PNB's season encore performances are not to be missed,” said Artistic Director Peter Boal. “A one-night-only retrospective of the highlights and memories of the past season, plus the opportunity to salute departing dancers Abby Relic and Lucien Postlewaite, make this one of the most memorable performances of the year. Expect ovations, tears, great dancing and a few surprises as part of this unique celebration.”

The line-up for the 2011-2012 Season Encore Performance includes:

Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée (excerpt)

Music: Igor Stravinsky

Choreography: George Balanchine emoji_000A9.gif The George Balanchine Trust

Swan Lake (Black Swan pas de deux)

Music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Choreography: Kent Stowell (after Marius Petipa)

After the Rain pas de deux

Music: Arvo Pärt

Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon

Prodigal Son (pas de deux)

Music: Sergei Prokofiev

Choreography: George Balanchine emoji_000A9.gif The George Balanchine Trust

Carousel (A Dance)

Music: Richard Rodgers

Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon

Apollo

Music: Igor Stravinsky

Choreography: George Balanchine emoji_000A9.gif The George Balanchine Trust

A Million Kisses to my Skin (excerpt)

Music: Johann Sebastian Bach

Choreography: David Dawson

Roméo et Juliette (balcony pas de deux)

Music: Sergei Prokofiev

Choreography: Jean-Christophe Maillot

Coppélia (finale)

Music: Léo Delibes

Choreography: Alexandra Danilova and George Balanchine emoji_000A9.gif The George Balanchine Trust

TICKET INFORMATION:

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Season Encore Performance will be performed one night only, Sunday, June 10 at 6:30 pm atMarion Oliver McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center. Tickets are currently on sale for PNB subscribers only; tickets go on sale to the general public on April 23.

Tickets range in price from $30 to $175 (with discounts available for PNB subscribers) and may be purchased through the PNB Box Office:

· By calling 206.441.2424 (Mon.-Fri. 9am–6pm; Sat. 10am–5pm)

· In person at 301 Mercer Street, Seattle (Mon.-Fri. 10am–6pm; Sat. 10am–5pm)

· Online 24/7 at our website, pnb.org

· 90 minutes prior to the performance at the McCaw Hall box office. (Subject to availability.)

· Group discounts are available by contacting Julie Jamieson 206.441.2416 or juliej@pnb.org.)

Please Note: No student/senior rush tickets or Teen Tix discounts are available for this special performance.

Link to comment

booo! Skip Swan Lake ppd and Baiser divert and show us *all* of Million Kisses! I never posted my review of the show, but that was one of the best experiences I've ever had as an audience member. I felt like I was walking at dawn on a beautiful early summer day, with the dew fresh on the grass, the air full of promise and birds chirping flirtations. And that was even with some hand-hold misses and one fall in the performance!

Baiser left me cold, and as we've already discussed, the SL ppd isn't nearly as effective out of context. If anything, I'd rather see the Diamonds ppd as a prelude for next season, since I just saw an SL excerpt last fall.

Unfortunately I don't donate nearly enough money to PNB to throw my weight around regarding programming choices. ;)

Link to comment

Well, we disagree about Baiser, but I agree I'd love to see all of Million Kisses again, right now, please. Apparently it was in one of the (many!) trial schedules for next year, but didn't make it to the final cut. I think that still bodes well for the future!

Link to comment

In the Q&A this afternoon Peter Boal confirmed that Korbes will dance Terpsichore tonight, that she's recovered from the injury that she had during the Apollo/Carminative rep, and that she missed dancing Swanhilde because of an injury to her partner, Seth Orza, who is okay now.

Link to comment

Some belated thoughts about the program.

Divertimento: I’m not sure why they performed this section of the work here -- I would be much more interested in seeing the male solo or at least the finale section of the ballet. It’s a nice showcase for the ensemble and the two demi soloists, but Biasucci is already in the Coppelia excerpt at the end of the program. Still, Jessica Anspach gave a very nice performance as one of the two demis (with Brittany Reid, who is such a reliable ensemble leader) -- very full and dancey. And there’s a great transition at the end to a moment for Abby Relic -- a solo bow with flowers.

(tangentially, I can absolutely understand why they had the PD women perform this in the school show later in the month -- as a Balanchine graduation piece, it gives everyone an excellent chance to show their skills)

After the Rain: The size difference between Rachel Foster and Batkhurel Bold works really well in this duet. It’s always had an air of exhaustion to me, as things unfold one moment at a time, without much acceleration or sustainment. It reminds me of the moments where you have just enough energy to put one foot in front of the other, but not much more. Foster’s open shoulders and wingspan look great here, especially in the lifts where the woman is arched forward like a bowsprit. And at the end, when Bold slides his long body under her and then pulls her around him like closing a tent, they both find rest.

Prodigal Son: This was the first of Postlewaite’s “farewell” appearances, and so it felt quite fraught. But even if it wasn’t a special performance it would still have a vibe -- Prodigal really takes big personalities to bring it off. They start off in that Shiva moment, where they’re wrapped around each other on the floor, and go through a catalog of pretty straightforward and raunchy moments ending with his head under her crotch. It’s more ritual than eroticism, and makes me think ahead just a bit to works like Bugaku. Gilbreath is certainly tall enough, but not quite as commanding as the part would like her to be yet. I imagine she’ll get there, though, and hope the company mounts this again soon so she gets another go at it. I saw Postlewaite in his 42nd Street debut (go out a nice boy from the corps and come back as something much more) -- part of the reason it worked so well was his naivety, which he reenacts now rather than just experiencing, but it’s still very convincing.

Carousel: I never noticed before, but the woman is on the outside of the circle at the beginning, and the Billy Bigelow character is in the middle. Not sure if this has actual significance, or it just worked better this way. Ricard Orza and Tisserand still look very nice in these parts, but I was more taken with the demi soloists -- Griffiths and Mullin, and Gaines and Kitchens -- all four were bold and rhythmic.

There was a second curtain call for Abby Relic at the end of this (she’s in the ensemble) and Allan Galli (Sancho Panza from Don Q) came “riding” out on/in his donkey costume to give her some flowers -- it was a great reference to the production, which otherwise isn’t represented on this program.

Apollo: I have a feeling I wasn’t the only person in the audience who was looking forward to this. I saw one of Postlewaite’s performances during the regular season and was very interested in some of his timing and focus decisions -- this was a chance to perhaps see them again. He’s obviously thought this part through, and made choices about the development of certain themes, especially the idea that we watch Apollo’s development from awkward youth to assured leader. I think this is harder to do in the abbreviated version -- it’s as if we walk into the middle of a conversation and have to speculate about its beginning while we’re trying to follow it to the end. But with that constraint in mind, Postlewaite does show us a developmental arc from the tentative pique steps at in the first solo through the confident “here I am” moment at the beginning of the second solo, with the arms raised high to the sides. He’s a little peremptory with the muses as he distributes the props -- there’s a quickness involved that makes the passage seem brisk. Kitchens and Rausch both looked great in their solos, but were not the right ‘match’ for Postlewaite’s Apollo -- with Korbes it was like a little bell rings -- “we’ve got a winner.” Their duet was a long series of lovely moments, just spinning along until the others come out, and then it’s like a rodeo, watching the champion roper handle a team of horses. I’d gone to the dress rehearsal of the rep program, and loved watching Orza and Postlewaite “dancing along” with Cruz, who was the official Apollo for that night. Everyone needs to find their way to their own performance of the work, but at the moment where he scans the sky (before the long walk and the sunburst) it was fascinating to see the different qualities that each dancer brought to the character. Postlewaite seems to use it as a defining moment, acknowledging his responsibilities and his place in this world, and it read very cleanly in performance. Honestly, I’ll miss seeing him in this role much more than I’ll miss his Romeo.

Cylindrical Shadows: The film has a peaceful quality to it that I don’t really get from the stage version, probably because the filmed version doesn’t get to the more disturbing images at the end of the dance, but instead it leaves a much gentler impression. It’s still fun to try and “name that location” as the editing cuts from place to place.

Kisses: Bold was in for Grant in the performance, and although he’s a substantial dancers, he’s not quite as fleet as some of the others in the cast, in a ballet that really needs you to move at top speed and then some. Chapman and Mullin really ate up space in their big phrases, and Porretta was both fiendish and fluid -- it was an amazing combination of effects. It’s seemed to me that Dec has been working on different ways to use her length and stride over the last couple of seasons, finding different tones and qualities in her amplitude, but this role really takes advantage of her sheer appetite for movement. I’m still trying to see all the structural development that Dawson has going on -- in this work he seems to be playing some of the same post-modern games that Tharp is known for -- but in the end watching this piece is like surfing -- you have to keep going forward. Stop to look around and you’re dead.

Romeo and Juliette: Honestly, this was almost too literally appropriate, with him leaving her at the end, to watch with anything like objectivity. Postlewaite and Nakamura have got such a great dynamic as partners, I really hope they can find some opportunities to dance together in the next couple of years, before that vibe wears thin. Big, big applause at the end, with lots of emotional curtain calls.

Coppelia: For all that this is Balanchine’s take on a Romantic era classic, the coda and finale from the third act excerpt as easily as anything Petipa ever made. Everyone looked great (particularly Biasucci and Moore as they flash by. She has great sweetness, that serves her well here and will likely be the part of her skill set that gets her cast in all kinds of things in the future. This is a send-them-home-happy excerpt from the ballet, and does that same task here.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...