2020-21 Season Finale: Rep 6, June 10-14

[Helene]

From the press releasem withe some added emphases:

Two more world premieres round out Rep 6 of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s first (and hopefully only) all-digital season.

Rep 6 to feature world premieres by Christopher Wheeldon and Edwaard Liang, plus Alejandro Cerrudo’s cheeky PACOPEPEPLUTO.

Rep 6: Streaming for five days only!

June 10 – 14, 2021 

 

Dance Happens Everywhere: PNB’s 2020/2021 Digital Season

Filmed at the Seattle Center Studios at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.

Viewable in the comfort, convenience and safety of your own home.

SEATTLE, WA – They said it couldn’t be done, and yet Pacific Northwest Ballet pushed forward with its plans for an all-digital season, featuring a cornucopia of new works choreographed, rehearsed, and filmed under strict pandemic protocols, mixed in with a selection of archival recordings. And audiences responded, tuning in from near and far, with patrons in all 50 states and 34 countries.Now PNB concludes its first- (and hopefully last-) ever digital season with its Rep 6, featuring two more world premiere works from Tony Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and artistic director of Ballet Met, Edwaard Liang. The program also includes an encore performance of Alejandro Cerrudo’s cheeky PACOPEPEPLUTO which entertained audiences during PNB’s First Look gala earlier in the season. (This work contains partial nudity.) PNB’s Rep 6 launches on Thursday, June 10, and the program is streamable for five days, through June 14. Digital performance tickets are $29, or $39 for Digital Performance-Plus. The latter provides access to bonus content including two additional new works choreographed by Vincent Michael Lopez and Nia-Amina Minor. (See “Ticket Information” and “Bonus Content” below.) For more information, contact the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424 or online at PNB.org.

(But wait, there’s more! Coming soon, look for additional exciting new dance works when PNB announces the line-ups for its NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase, launching June 4; and Season Encore performance, June 18-22.)PROGRAM LINE-

Curious Kingdom (World Premiere)

Music: Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, and songs performed by Edith Piaf (Non, je ne regrette rien; La vie en rose; L'homme a la moto [Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots])

Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon

Featuring: Leta Biasucci, Elle Macy, Lucien Postlewaite, Jerome Tisserand and Dylan Wald

Costume Design: Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme

Lighting Design: Reed Nakayama

Approximate Running Time: 30 minutes

The world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s ­­­­Curious Kingdom is generously underwritten by Susan Brotman. 

Christopher Wheeldon trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet (NYCB) and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer in 2001. Since then, he has created and staged productions for many of the world’s major ballet companies. In 2007, Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. He now serves as Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet and has created many works for the company including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. Career highlights include directing and choreographing the 2014 stage version of An American In Paris, which had productions in Paris, New York, London and Tokyo; The world premiere of The Joffrey Ballet’s The Nutcracker (2016); the gala presentation of Lerner & Leowe’s Brigadoon at New York City Center (2017); and the premiere of Corybantic Games and a re-staged version of Cinderella (2019). Among Wheeldon’s awards are a Tony Award for Best Choreography, an Outer Critics Award for Best Choreography and Direction, the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, the Dance Magazine Award, multiple London Critic’s Circle Awards, the Léonide Massine Prize for new choreography, the Benois de la Danse, and he is an Olivier Award winner. In 2016, he was named an O.B. E. and was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For more information, visit ChristopherWheeldon.com. 

The Veil Between Worlds (World Premiere)

Music: Oliver Davis
Choreography: Edwaard Liang

Costume Design: Mark Zappone
Lighting Design: Reed Nakayama

Principal support for the world premiere of Edwaard Liang’s The Veil Between Worlds is provided by Denise Littlefield Sobel, with additional support provided by Chap & Eve Alvord, T.R. Ko, Lyndall Boal, Jodi Wong, Stephanie Jung, and Elizabeth Pirnat. 

A former dancer with New York City Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater, Edwaard Liang has built an international reputation as a choreographer. Over the last decade, he has created work for the Bolshoi Ballet, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Shanghai Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre and Washington Ballet. Born in Taipei, Taiwan and raised in Marin County, California, Liang began his dance training at age five with Marin Ballet. After studying at the School of American Ballet, he joined New York City Ballet in 1993. That same year, he was a medal winner at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition and won the Mae L. Wien Award. By 1998, he was promoted to Soloist. In 2001, Liang joined the Tony Award-winning Broadway cast of Fosse. His performance in Fosse was later televised on PBS’ Great Performances series and subsequently released on DVD. In 2002, Liang was invited by Jiri Kylian to become a member of the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater 1. While dancing with NDT 1, Liang discovered his passion and love for choreography. His works have been performed by dance companies around the world and he has won numerous awards for his choreography including the 2006 National Choreographic Competition. In 2013, Liang was named Artistic Director at BalletMet. In 2017, he received an Emmy Award for his short dance film, Vaulted. In 2018, he created a new ballet with Roberto Bolle for the opening of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. 

PACOPEPEPLUTO

Music: Songs sung by Dean Martin and Joe Scalissi (In the Chapel in the Moonlight, Memories Are Made of This, and That’s Amore)

Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo

Featuring: Christopher D’Ariano, James Moore, and Lucien Postlewaite

Staging: Pablo Piantino

Costume Design: Rebecca M. Shouse

Lighting Design: Matt Miller

Approximate Running Time: Eight minutes

Premiere: June 17, 2011, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

PNB Premiere: November 20, 2020 (First Look Gala)

The 2020 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Alejandro Cerrudo’s PACOPEPEPLUTO was generously underwritten by Susan Brotman.

This work contains partial nudity.

Alejandro Cerrudo is a Chicago-based choreographer born in Madrid, Spain. His professional career includes work with Czech National Ballet, Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC). Cerrudo became HSDCʼs first-ever Resident Choreographer in 2008 and held that position until 2018. His body of work has been performed by more than 20 professional dance companies around the world. In March 2012, upon receiving the Joyce Theater Foundationʼs second Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance, Cerrudo was invited by Pacific Northwest Ballet to choreograph his first work for the company, Memory Glow. Additional honors include an award from the Boomerang Fund for Artists (2011) and the Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work from the Prince Charitable Trusts (2012) for his acclaimed work, One Thousand Pieces. In 2014, he was awarded the USA Donnelley Fellowship by United States Artists. In 2017, Cerrudo was invited to choreograph a site-specific performance for the Guggenheim Rotunda, a Works & Process Rotunda Project commission featuring Daniil Simkin, with original costumes by Dior. Cerrudoʼs Sleeping Beauty, created for Ballet Theater Basel in 2016, was nominated as Production of the Year in Switzerland by Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

PACOPEPEPLUTO and Future Memory, both performed during this current digital season, were the fifth and sixth Cerrudo ballets, respectively, to enter PNB’s repertory – following Memory Glow (world premiere 2014), Little mortal jump (PNB premiere 2016), Silent Ghost (PNB premiere 2018), and One Thousand Pieces, which the company only performed once at its March 2020 dress rehearsal, before PNB was temporarily shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Artistic Director Peter Boal announced that Mr. Cerrudo had been appointed as PNB’s first Resident Choreographer.

 

BONUS CONTENT 

PNB digital season subscribers, and patrons who purchase the Digital Performance-Plus ticket, will receive access to an archival recording of Edwaard Liang’s Distant Cries (2005, Peter Boal and Company) as well as the world premieres of Op. 21 by Vincent Michael Lopez, and a new work created by Nia-Amina Minor.

 Vincent Michael Lopez began his dance career receiving the Oprah Winfrey Scholarship in 2005 to study at Alvin Ailey. In 2008, he became a co-founding member of the touring company Wideman/Davis Dance and also joined Spectrum Dance Theater. Other performances include guest artist engagements with Whim W’Him, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, The 5th Avenue Theatre, and Seattle Opera, among others. Lopez left Spectrum in 2015 to pursue a one-year residency in Alaska and a three-month residency in Dhaka, Bangladesh teaching dance workshops to children with limited arts access. Shortly after returning to Seattle in 2017, he premiered an evening-length ballet titled Noraefa, which was re-staged for Spectrum in April 2019. Lopez is now in his ninth season with Spectrum Dance Theater. 

Nia-Amina Minor is a movement artist and dance educator based in Seattle. She studied at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and received her BA from Stanford University. Minor holds her MFA in Dance from UC Irvine. Her work has many disciplinary points of interest focusing on the body and what it carries. Through performance and teaching, Minor converses with Black realities and investigates the intersections of movement, memory, and rhythm.  She is a co-founder and former curator for Los Angeles based collective, No)one Art House. Minor is in her fifth season with Spectrum Dance Theater and holds the position of Company Dancer as well as Community Engagement Artist Liaison. 

 

TICKET INFORMATION

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s digital presentation of Rep 6 runs June 10 – 14. Tickets may be purchased through the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424 or online at PNB.org 

Ticket-buyers will receive an email prior to the program with a link and password, as well as helpful information to assist in viewing the digital content. Rep 6 and bonus content will be available for a five-day viewing window beginning at 10am (Pacific) on Thursday, June 10. Digital content can only be viewed during the allotted time period; No extensions or exceptions will be granted. For additional information, please contact the PNB Box Office. 

All patrons of PNB’s basic Digital Performance ($29) will also receive, in addition to the Rep 6 program line-up:

·         Five Minute Call – A peek backstage at the artists, musicians, and crew preparing for the performances.

·         Ballet Talk – Doug Fullington’s informative introduction to the performance, discussing choreography, music, history, and design.

·         Meet the Artist – Peter Boal with company dancers in a lively conversation about the work.

Additionally, season subscribers and patrons of the Digital Performance Plus ($39) will receive access to an archival recording of Edwaard Liang’s Distant Cries (2005, Peter Boal and Company) and the world premieres of Op. 21 by Vincent Michael Lopez, and a new work created by Nia-Amina Minor.