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PNB School Performance


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SEATTLE, WA -- Nationally acclaimed Pacific Northwest Ballet School (PNBS) closes the year with its 23rd Annual Pacific Northwest Ballet School Performance - an exciting showcase featuring nearly 500 students age 8 to 18 years old - Saturday, June 19 at the new McCaw Hall. This year's event marks the first School performance in McCaw Hall and the first time the School has presented two performances rather than one. Students from The Francia Russell Center in Bellevue perform at 12:00 p.m. and students from The Phelps Center in Seattle perform at 3:30 p.m. The two full casts take the stage dancing in a variety of works created especially for them by PNBS's distinguished faculty and featuring the highly anticipated world premiere reconstruction of Marius Petipa's Le Jardin Animé.

Performances for the annual event are June 19 at 12:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Tickets range in price from $10 to $55 for children and $20 to $55 for adults and may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at (206) 441-2424 (Mon. through Fri., 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.; Sat. 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.) or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer Street (Mon. through Fri., 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. , Sat. 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.) and at McCaw Hall at 321 Mercer Street 90 minutes prior to each performance.

Both performances will feature the remarkable world premiere reconstruction of Marius Petipa's Le Jardin Animé ("The animated garden"), a 15-minute divertissement added to a revival of the full-length swashbuckler ballet Le Corsaire in 1867, with a score by Leo Delibes (1836-1891). The original choreography was by Joseph Mazilier (1801-1868), choreographer of the original Le Corsaire. The dances were performed by the captured heroine Medora and her friend Gulnare, joined by a garden of dancing flowers.

When Marius Petipa (1818-1910) restaged Le Corsaire in St. Petersburg, Russia, he included Le Jardin Animé and likely made his own changes to the choreography. During the subsequent Soviet era, however, numbers were scaled back, choreography was changed at the hands of various stagers, and both dance and music for the ballerinas' variations were altered. Most of Petipa's contributions were ultimately lost. Fortunately, Petipa's choreography for Le Jardin Animé had been preserved in notation form using the system developed in the early 1890s by Maryinsky Theatre dancer Vladimir Stepanov (1866-1896). Stepanov had studied anatomy in Paris and returned to St. Petersburg with a new system of dance notation and plans to notate the entire ballet repertory. The Stepanov notations of many works in the Maryinsky Theatre repertory are now housed at Harvard University. They have recently been used by the Kirov Ballet for reconstructions of Petipa's Sleeping Beauty (1890) and La Bayadère (1900 revival). The notation for Le Jardin Animé is one of the most detailed documents of dance choreography from the 19th century.

Le Jardin Animé will be revived from the Stepanov notations for the first time by dance historian Doug Fullington and Pacific Northwest Ballet School faculty member and former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Manard Stewart. This world premiere revival will be the first ballet reconstruction using the Stepanov notations in the United States. Choreographed for 68 dancers, from two lead ballerinas to twelve couples of young students, Le Jardin Animé is a beautiful kaleidoscope of dance and music sure to delight the audience as it did over 100 years ago in Imperial Russia. Two casts of students from Level III through the Professional Division will dance their way into dance history as they perform the reconstructed choreography to an orchestral recording of Leo Delibes' charming score, in its original 1867 orchestration.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School acknowledges the Harvard Theatre Collection (Frederic Woodbridge Wilson, curator) for permission to use documents from the Sergejev Collection for the revival of Le Jardin Animé.

Other highlights of the afternoon performances include "The Bullfrog Patrol" from PNB Artistic Director Kent Stowell's full-length Silver Lining (staged by Paul Gibson) and an excerpt from Stowell's Hail to the Conquering Hero (staged by PNB Ballet Master Anne Dabrowksi). George Balanchine, whose centenary is celebrated this year, is represented by "Fascinatin' Rhythm" from Who Cares? and the first movement of Symphony in C, both staged by PNBS Director and PNB Artistic Director Francia Russell. Also on the program is a modern dance work by PNBS faculty member Sonia Dawkins.

In addition, students in Levels I through VII and DanceChance perform works choreographed by PNBS faculty members Marisa Albee, Elaine Bauer, Alice Bergeson, Lisa Dillinger, Flemming Halby, Dane Holman, Cynthia Jordan, Lucia Kuimova, Timothy Lynch, Meg Potter, Victoria Pulkkinen, Abbie Siegel and Bruce Wells.

Bravo! due PNBS students for their exciting accomplishments and new pursuits

As the year comes to a close many PNBS students embark on new endeavors. Many of the Professional Division students are moving on to join ballet companies nationwide, including: Jessika Anspach, Brennan Boyer, Erin Lewis and Sean Whiteman, Pacific Northwest Ballet; Stephanie Fenz, Ballet West; Elizabeth Fuller, Oregon Ballet Theatre; Marisa Keller, Cincinnati Ballet; Levi Mandel, Graham Pontarolo and Lauren Zelt, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre; Anthony Smith, Ballet Austin; and Kelly Tipton, Atlanta Ballet. Two Professional Division students will be continuing their higher education including Amanda Jenkins at the University of Massachusetts and Reed Hague at New York University.

Several Level VII students are pursuing higher education, including: Katherine Cahoon, Vanderbilt University; Eva Grzesik, Barnard College; Ashley Klekar, Western Washington University; Carly Mayer and Chrissa Yee, New York University; Lindsey Merrihew, Stanford University; Pilar Ochi, Harvard University; Danielle Pavlovic, University of Washington; and Marisa Robinson, Smith College.

The 23rd Annual Pacific Northwest Ballet School Performance is generously sponsored by Merrill Lynch and QFC, Inc. PNBS thanks the Talented Students in the Arts Initiative, a collaboration of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Surdna Foundation. Pacific Northwest Ballet's 2003-2004 Season is supported in part by ArtsFund, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, PONCHO, Cultural Development Authority of King County Hotel/Motel Tax Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington State Arts Commission, and Jet Blue Airways. New works and acquisitions during Pacific Northwest Ballet's 2003-2004 Season are supported in part by the Glenn Kawasaki New Works Fund.

ABOUT PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET SCHOOL

Pacific Northwest Ballet School, under the direction of Francia Russell, is nationally recognized as setting the standard for ballet training offering a complete professional curriculum to over 850 students. The School also provides comprehensive dance education to the greater Seattle area reaching over 10,000 adults and children each year through DanceChance, Discover Dance, Bravo!Ballet and other outreach programs and activities.

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Le Jardin Animé will be revived from the Stepanov notations for the first time by dance historian Doug Fullington and Pacific Northwest Ballet School faculty member and former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Manard Stewart. This world premiere revival will be the first ballet reconstruction using the Stepanov notations in the United States. Choreographed for 68 dancers, from two lead ballerinas to twelve couples of young students, Le Jardin Animé is a beautiful kaleidoscope of dance and music sure to delight the audience as it did over 100 years ago in Imperial Russia.

ABT produced a version of Le Jardin Anime in 1980 or 81. It didn't use 68 dancers, though, and I don't remember how it was reconstructed.

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I've been trying to determine the source for the ABT staging in the early 1980s. It doesn't bear resemblance to the Kirov versions I have seen. The television broadcast credits a stager but I forget at the moment who it was. The notated version is for two ballerinas, 6 demi women, 12 korifeiki (between corps and coryphee, I believe), 12 corps de ballet couples, 12 little girls and 12 little boys. The props include 36 garlands, 12 baskets of flowers and 6 flowers for the demis.

As far as the relationship between the notated version and the Kirov version, I believe the only similarities are the use of 6 women at the opening of the piece (though the steps are completely different), the support of the ballerina by the demis at the beginning of the adagio (again, different steps) and the diagonal grouping of the dancers in the adagio (again, different steps).

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