Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET arrives in New York with an eclectic set of dances that showcase the company’s versatility

• By drediman
• June 24, 2022
• No Comments

Last night at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, I attended a performance by Pacific Northwest Ballet. Presented by The Joyce Theater, the company arrives in New York with an eclectic set of lavishly mounted works that showcase the company’s versatility and keen interest in dance as an extension of theater.

The program started with Ulysses Dove’s poetic Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven (Odes to Love and Loss), which was originally performed by the Swedish Ballet in 1993. Set to an emotive score by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, Dove’s ensemble-driven ballet for six dancers is unadorned and gorgeously lit. As the work’s title suggests, the work – a captivating blend of classical ballet and contemporary dance – is a haunting ode to those that the choreographer has loved and lost. Throughout, I was enthralled by the spectral, meditative quality that the dancers brought to the piece.

In stark contrast, the evening continued with Crystal Pite’s elaborately staged Plot Point, a sophisticated study of Bernard Herrmann’s score (featuring additional soundtrack by Owen Belton) for the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. Although Pite eludes offering a straightforward plot in her dissection of cinematic storytelling, her cool and intellectual ballet – danced with rigor by the Pacific Northwest dancers – is heavy on menace and drenched in atmosphere, as befits the film noir shadings of the iconic film, as well as the highly theatrical aesthetic of Nederlands Dans Theater (which originally premiered the work in 2010).

To conclude the program, Pacific Northwest Ballet performed another story-focused ballet, Twyla Tharp’s Waiting at the Station, which the legendary choreographer created specifically for company in 2013. Set to songs by Allen Toussaint, the sprightly-danced ballet – which is set in 1940s New Orleans – is the least interesting of the bunch with its convoluted storytelling and predictable and bland choreography (Tharp’s loose-limbed, casual brand of dance is better represented elsewhere). Overall, the work has the tone of a Broadway musical, which is not surprising given Tharp’s multiple dabbles in directing and choreographing on the Great White Way.

The performance featured live accompanied by the PNB Orchestra (under the capable music direction of the orchestra’s principal conductor Emil de Cou), which navigated the playing of the evening’s diverse scores with prowess. In lieu of the Dove piece, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s other program this week at the Koch includes Little mortal jump choreographed by PNB resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo.

RECOMMENDED

PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET
Dance
The Joyce Theater / David H. Koch Theater
2 hours, 20 minutes (with two intermissions)
Through June 26