What Lingers When the Fleeting Moment is Gone

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Lucien Postlewaite and soloist Clara Ruf Maldonado in Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Photo © Angela Sterling.

Moments before the last performance of "Emergence" at Pacific Northwest Ballet last weekend, as the orchestra tuned and that beloved scarlet curtain sparkled, eager anticipation hung in the air. All around, I heard people asking each other “How many times have you seen this one already?” and the passionate pre-show explanations from loyal attendees who had brought along friends to catch this fantastic program. In any other combination of pieces, I would have claimed that this was solely the expected effect of Crystal Pite’s work taking to the stage. Seattle is no stranger to the obsessive fascination and love that her work sparks, and sure enough, night after night, Emergence brought the full house to a roaring standing ovation. But it wasn’t just classic Pite magic prompting this passionate crowd to flock to McCaw Hall again and again during rep four. 

Price Suddarth’s world premiere of Dawn Patrol has, in seven brief performances, proven its extraordinary poetic beauty and potential to become a prevailing audience favorite. It’s the kind of work that prompts deep discussion and reflection during intermission, a work whose wealth of meaning lingers, that grazes some deep nerve and leaves you breathless in its wake. Its greatest strength is the exceptionally clear vision which is woven cohesively throughout the choreography, music, scenic, costume, and lighting design. When the curtain rises upon the expansive space, all of these elements greet us, wash over us in their breathtaking beauty. 

Chrisoula Kapelonis’ suspended, overarching set piece embodies movement even in its static existence, and, touched by Reed Nakayama’s lighting, seems to change before us. The light itself is a character in Dawn Patrol. Flooding from above, Nakayama’s lighting seen from the upper tiers of McCaw Hall adds an overwhelmingly potent layer of beauty. Each dancer’s stark shadow, spiraling there beneath them in some other plane of existence is a haunting sight, one that perfectly echoes the relationship to the past. A shadow is proof of existence, of blocking the sun, and this choice to let the dancers’ shadows echo their triumphant performances, made me want to dwell within that melancholic beauty forever.

Mark Zappone’s deceivingly simple, weightless costumes lend themselves both to the ethereal and historical aspects of Suddarth’s work. And oh, that score. Thank goodness for music that makes us feel something. Alfonso Peduto creates the backbone of this piece, and with its film-like dramatically heartfelt undertone, deepens Suddarth’s vision of marrying the metaphoric strength of stagecraft and the narrative ability of film. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Christopher D’Ariano and principal dancer Leta Biasucci in the world premiere of Price Suddarth’s Dawn Patrol, Photo © Angela Sterling.

Many choreographers place a work onstage and let the audience interpret what each moment depicts, and while Suddarth also lets us do this, the inspiration of the heroism of World War II dawn patrol pilots gives us parameters. Dawn patrol pilots flew off into the sunrise knowing the slim chance of their return, and the weight of this, the context of their stories not only informs, but strengthens his choreography tremendously. Dawn Patrol is rooted in real experiences, so whether it unfolds before us as metaphor or as narrative, there is an aching truth there.

I always find it a sign of a successful work if you can watch a piece repeatedly and still feel its effect as strongly as you did the first time. There are some works that you could watch one hundred times and still not tire of finding new gems, and after letting it wash over me eight times, I think I can say that Dawn Patrol is one of those already beloved works. During the second weekend of performances, a partial second cast was introduced, and, as Price Suddarth had claimed in the pre-dress rehearsal discussion: “From one show to the next, it’s completely different. Which means, buy tickets to every show.” That turned out to be true, for each performance, even with the same cast, provided an opportunity to experience it all in a different light.

In The Seattle Times, Moira Macdonald complained of not being able to distinguish dancers in the dim light, but Price Suddarth has captured their individual strengths so well that I’d argue that their forms are unmistakable. Christopher D’Ariano’s ability to weave poetry, become poetry himself; Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s fierce captivation and relentlessly precise velocity; Yuki Takahashi’s needle-sharp expansiveness; Dylan Wald’s expressive propulsion and effortless prowess; Elle Macy’s heaven-directed gaze and intrinsic drive to find the utmost reach of each breath and gesture; Luther DeMyer’s free-flowing lyricism; Mark Cuddihee’s baffling power as he swept through the dark… there’s more brilliance upon that stage than words will ever be able to capture.

In fragmented images of solitude and unity, of inner turmoil and comradery, Suddarth’s work demands to be felt. Carried by Peduto’s score, what unfolds before us is emotionally intense in all of its tender beauty. A line of arms drawn back, arched like a bowing swan and carrying a world of sorrow between their taut limbs; a dancer who falls with wild abandon into the trust of her partner’s waiting arms; the urgency and desperation of a canon of men falling to kneel beside each other; hands that try to hold each other and find only air; the palpable sense of constriction and control shown in a body passed between four hands with relentless contact; the power of their determined unity. They catch our breath with their sudden stillness, walking away from it all to leave one who grieves and grapples onward. Whether it be seen as snow or ash that falls upon his worried head, all the unrest and worry of the world finds its reflection there. 

Afternoon of a Faun is a bright little pearl of a ballet, one which, placed in a rep of dark ballets sparkles in its serene light. Wendy Lesser described it as a dance that “is profoundly touching in an almost inexplicable way,” and its ethereal, dream-like quality leaves an echoing feeling of awe. Its subtle introspection portrays the intellectual layers that Jerome Robbins’ wove into his work, but simultaneously it’s all just a simple, beautiful dream. Tanaquil LeClercq, for whom the work was choreographed in 1954, once said that she “always imagined it to be a hot summer day and I was wrapped up in a roomy cocoon with Debussy’s music”.

The dancers in Afternoon of a Faun are, for the most part, emotionally detached and only half present with each other, yet nothing feels more genuine than this moment that they share. Lucien Postlewaite and Clara Ruf Maldonado once again inhabited a lovely dream together, showing refinement and intentionality in every gesture. Postlewaite’s initial sense of discontent and Maldonado’s lyrical freedom before their eyes meet and their little world shifts in the balance of perception was particularly powerful.  It’s all about perception, about being perceived, and Robbins’ paints an almost hypnotic scene before us as this luxuriously slow ballet unravels. What Postlewaite and Maldonado portrayed perfectly encapsulated Orel Protoposecu's reflections on the work: "Faun is about the ecstasy of using the body as well as possible in service to an art. It's also about reaching and retreating from connection in the midst of the solitary pursuit of an always elusive perfection." If you were in the audience to see this beautiful dream, you might not be in agreement that perfection is always elusive, for there it was, held within those airy white walls for eleven blissful minutes.

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Lucien Postlewaite and soloist Clara Ruf Maldonado in Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Photo © Angela Sterling.

On Saturday night, I couldn’t help but think of the decades of dancers who have taken on the role of nymph and faun, and how greatly interpretations vary in tone and mood. Dylan Wald and Yuki Takahashi make this sublime dream feel shockingly real, and impulsive in a way that’s hard to capture in a work as old as this. Moving alone through the clean slate of white and blue, echoing both reality and some far-off world, Wald let us see the intuitive musings of an artist left alone, and it was a scene so full of care and casual beauty that it could have continued on all night in its sense of ethereal wonder. It’s not a piece that calls for reactivity, yet somehow, upon waking to find another presence in the studio, Wald conveyed such surprise and desire to see Takahashi’s definitive grace and arresting control fill the room. Nothing else in the world existed as they floated through this ballet with weightless ease, which, is perhaps exactly what Robbins intended. Just when we’re most captivated, and they sit there, spellbound as her fingers graze her own cheek, the music declares that she must leave, and so she does. And our faun, still in his hazy dream, watches her go, brushes his fingers across his lips, and all too soon, deems this little daydream to be already just a beautiful memory. It’s a ballet of many interpreters and rich history, but on Saturday night it was fully theirs and theirs alone.

In its fifteen dense minutes, Mopey packs a punch and demands a lot from its audience in terms of different styles, tempos, and levels of madness to take in. But, it’s not for the audience at all, is it? This character doesn’t care that we’re there watching him, he simply has to move and we happen to be there coincidently.

During the second weekend, Kuu Sakuragi shone with all of his signature strength and precision, capturing both the boundless frustration and angst, as well as the drawn-out stillness that left McCaw Hall quiet enough to hear a pin fall. Noah Martzall’s singular performance showed a tenderness and maturity that reframed the piece. This has been quite the rep for Mark Cuddihee, with standout performances in Dawn Patrol, Mopey, and Emergence, and what he was able to portray in this solo work was a great deal of freedom and cathartic will. It was a gift to be able to see Joh Morrill roar through this work again, though I would have happily seen him perform it a dozen times more. He dances Mopey as though this is exactly what his classical training prepared him for. Its beauty is real for him, and he wears his crown high through each glimmer of madness and rebellion. 

When all the frazzled power comes to a still, the ability to bring down that kind of energy at the end is also a choreographic talent. Mopey is an unapologetically weird work, but maybe there’s room for weird. It stretches us, and that alone is one of the most influential qualities of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s diverse repertory.

Crystal Pite’s Emergence may be an addictive substance. The more you let it wash over you, the more you see, and its infinitely fascinating structures and rhythms let you disappear into a world of light, form, and bizarre brilliance that feels like it could consume you. I think some audiences are quite used to the conventional things that a body can depict and emote, but Crystal Pite is committed to finding something different within the possibilities of a large classically-trained cast. Like her beloved The Seasons’ Canon, the scope of what she attempts to convey is tremendous. “I’m inspired by big questions, I like to tackle content that feels like its beyond me,” she said in a 2017 interview, and in Emergence she shows us something unimaginable.

What Pite creates throughout Emergence is the movement language of a species, crafted in repeated phrases and gestures that we learn to interpret. It’s a ballet of creepy crawlers that move like their lives depend on it, and of their ferocious strength that collapses and regrows, throwing their elongated, unhuman shadows upon the backdrop. It’s a ballet of competition, of hierarchy and dominance, of geometry, politics, and hive mentality driving a group forward. 

From the first glimpse of dim light upon a newly fledged being, the prologue already declares its eerie potential. The steady thrum of marching rising from the dark evokes a sense of pulse, of heartbeat, which becomes a haunting sensation as the stage crowds with an unrecognizable, masked group. We hear their life force pulsing, threatening. Their military precision and rhythmic synchronicity are a geometric illumination in the warm glow, and their repetitions of sharp-edged visceral power make our lizard brains so gleeful that it's addicting.

Some ballets are carried by music, but Emergence lets us hear the dancers’ articulation in an ingenious way. Take for instance, the pointe trio, so creaturely and otherworldly in their contorted image, where three dancers respond to sound as if they are the ones emanating every rolling crackle and pop. Or the sound of a pointe shoe dragged across the stage which quite perfectly imitates the ocean’s heartbeat of the score. Even the line of women that cross the stage, their counting becomes the score at that moment, which, in some return to Pite’s concept of portraying a ballet’s companies “hive mentality”, makes audible an aspect of dance that we don’t often get to hear upon the stage. The beat of Emergence is an intoxicating madness of ingenuity, particularly when considering that Crystal Pite choreographed this entire work in only three weeks. It’s formed by broad strokes of genius, riveting layers of forms and patterns, catching the stark light that only makes their unity more ferociously brilliant. 

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Crystal Pite’s Emergence. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Pacific Northwest Ballet has been incredibly lucky to have added three of Pite’s works to their repertory in the past eleven years, and these dancers manage to embody Pite’s world like they’ve never danced anything else. Even amid 37 others, even when they're still concealed by gauzy masks or darkness, some forms manage to catch the light in their bold overachievement. You find them there, amidst the crowd, extending their movement further than the choreographer could have envisioned or anticipated, and understanding Pite’s language with unparalleled vigor. 

The sharp-edged nuance and ferocious strength of Elle Macy and Dylan Wald’s Grand Pas was once again an astonishing sight, riddled with unbelievable energy, aggression, and defensive union.  The undistinguishable group fades to reveal two who lock eyes with bestial energy, and there in the isolated light, their chilling and eerie pas de deux is viscous in its animalistic and muscular contortions. Like with most things these two undertake, the idea of choreography is forgotten in that moment, for it becomes authentically their own, a real living dialogue between two beings.

In the quartet, both Clara Ruf Maldonado and Amanda Morgan showed us the same intuitive shapings of Pite’s choreography that we've seen them imbue in The Seasons’ Canon. This section of Emergence echoes The Seasons’ Canon’s softer, more human movement, and its soulful beauty. They step into her work with overwhelming naturalness, as though it is their own voice, and each inflection flows through the warm light with potent expression. The moment when this dancer stands face to face with the growing group of men, and then flees the scene also draws me back to images from The Seasons’ Canon, haunting reflections of our own world.

To name just a few more remarkable sights (though I could go on and on): in both the dark corners of the prologue and amid the crowd–masked and all–Miles Pertl’s indistinguishable leading strength; Yuki Takahashi’s gloriously sharp and controlled creaturely performance in the prologue, Lucas Galvan’s shocking height in the finale, Madison Rayn Abeo’s crisp and fearless attack of the pointe trio’s nearly mechanical physicality, and Mark Cuddihee’s soaring, raging “Bee Man”... thank goodness for all this exquisite passion.

The energy that builds as the finale grows in dimension is baffling. Who else other than Crystal Pite could have imagined these overlapping, synchronized, vigorous forms that catch the light and overwhelm the stage with their mosaic of cohesive strength? From each level of the theater, it’s a different experience, at once a large-scale work of architecture, and an ingenious act of unity. Emergence’s heartbeat penetrates some aspect of the soul long after the curtain has fallen, and as they’ve shown time and time again, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s masterful rendering makes it all the more beautiful in all of its luminescent intensity.

If you missed it, or desperately need to see it again, Emergence streams through March 31st for digital subscribers. Learn more at https://www.pnb.org/season/subscriptions/digital-sub/