Vail – Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet might not have the history or cachet of its counterparts in cities such as San Francisco or New York, but make no mistake: It is a major American company.
That was made resoundingly clear during the first two of the company’s three impressively varied programs earlier this week, offering audiences glimpses of 50 years of European and American dance history.
The company’s Vail debut marked the opening of the 19th edition of the Vail International Dance Festival – the first under the exciting new artistic leadership of
Damian Woetzel, a soon-to-retire principal dancer of the New York City Ballet.
Pacific Northwest offers almost everything anyone could want from a full-scale ballet company. Besides a diverse, updated repertoire, it has a group of superbly trained dancers with a surprising depth of talent and some veritable stars.
Because of the company’s founding artistic directors’ connections to George Balanchine, the co-founder and longtime artistic leader of the New York City Ballet, his celebrated choreography long has been a staple of its repertoire.
So, it only made sense for Pacific Northwest to dedicate an evening to the choreographer – a program Monday evening in Beaver Creek’s Vilar Center for the Arts – with a 50th anniversary presentation of “Agon” as its centerpiece.
In this intricate, highly kinetic masterpiece, which still seems startling and assertive five decades after its creation, Balanchine blazed the path that contemporary ballet would follow thereafter. He repeatedly defied classical norms yet made it classical nonetheless.
The heart of the piece is its famously challenging pas de deux, danced with commitment and technical exactitude by principals Louise Nadeau and Jeffrey Stanton. The partnering is often off-balance, with unexpected, seemingly counter-intuitive steps and brashly original combinations.
Culminating the evening was Balanchine’s crowd-pleasing showpiece, “Rubies” (1967), with sassy solo work by Lindsi Dec. Principals Miranda Weese and Jonathan Porretta brought gusto and impeccable synchronicity to the central duo.
The program began with “Square Dance,” which is also marking its 50th anniversary. It was also included in a slightly different form on Pacific Northwest’s opening all-American program Sunday evening in the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
In this ballet, Balanchine manages the almost impossible trick of combining American square dance and 17th-century court dance into a neat neoclassical ballet package, making the most of surprisingly simple steps.
Sunday evening, the company performed the original, folksier version, complete with a caller (Scott Wise) and a group of 10 first-rate musicians from the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival on stage. Monday, it offered the revised, more streamlined version from 1976 with no caller and the musicians in the pit. Which is better? It’s a question of taste.
Two sets of dancers performed the featured duo, with Sunday’s dynamic pair – principals Poretta and the wonderful Noelani Pantastico – leaving a bigger impression.
Pacific Northwest’s Sunday program also included Jerome Robbins’ “In the Night” (1970), set to Chopin nocturnes performed eloquently by Dianne Chilgren, and Twyla Tharp’s “Nine Sinatra Songs” (1982).
The latter has become an oft-performed contemporary classic, and it’s not hard to figure out why. It combines vintage Sinatra with choreography based on resurgent 1950s social dances, such as the tango.
The key is achieving elegance while handling the work’s often significant technical demands. Rather than performing, the couples should look like they are enjoying a night together at a high-class dance club. And that’s what Pacific Northwest delivered, performing this work with brilliance and brio.
Deserving note were soloists Karel Cruz and Lesley Rausch with their appealing fluidity and sense of ease, and soloist Chalnessa Eames and James Moore, who tackled the intricate, interlocking movements of their section with zesty precision.
The Vail International Dance Festival continues through Aug. 11.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
