Featured image: Peter Boal as a student, courtesy Peter Boal Edward Villella The author discusses dancing as a powerful drug, in which muscles come alive. But performance also can be like running a stamina-draining marathon, tapping into stores of energy, then needing to manage an adrenaline rush that can take hours to relax from. All…
Tag: Peter Boal
PNB’s Worlds to Come
“Worlds to Come,” PNB’s last set of performances for its 50th Anniversary Season, streamed digitally June 15-19. The program, with its two world premieres and a live performance premiere, was one of the best I’ve seen at Pacific Northwest Ballet. All three choreographers are extraordinary storytellers—Edward Liang, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Kiyon Ross—Liang and Ochoa…
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Season Encore
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Season Encore June 11-15, 2023 celebrating principal dancer Lesley Rausch’s career as a dancer was indeed bittersweet. But, with eight separate pieces (many, excerpts) on the program, it was indeed a reveling in Rausch’s rich career as a dancer. The first four pieces of the program featured huge talents—Elle Macy in Penny…
Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Seattle
Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with delightful music from Felix Mendelssohn, is a crowd pleaser for sure. The choreographer himself must have had fond memories of when he performed, as PNB artistic director notes in his April 12, 2011 post in “Director’s Notebook,” as an eight-year-old bug in a St. Petersburg production. With staging by…
PNB presents “Boundless”
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Boundless” program featured choreographers Alejandro Cerrudo, Jessica Lang, and Penny Saunders. This review is of a film made opening night, March 17, 2023. In Penny Saunders’ Wonderland, Michael Wall supplies original music and adapts others. Divided into five sections, we hear strains of Jean-Philippe Goude, Hugues Le Bars, Erik Satie, Camille Saint-Saëns,…
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Fall dance programs—Digital triumph, critical success
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Fall dance programs were both digital triumph and critical success. Kudos to artistic director Peter Boal and his administrative and artistic staff for presenting such stunning and sensitive dance to the world. Reviews, in brief Rep I (streamed in October). PNB’s Rep I featured George Balanchine’s Jewels, but all the pieces on…
Pacific Northwest Ballet: Eva Stone’s FOIL—a genius of programming
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s November program was remarkable—and unforgettable—and I’ll be writing soon on separate pieces. But first, just one shout-out: Eva Stone for her masterful Foil and to artistic director Peter Boal for commissioning and programming it. Foil is perhaps best known for the Seattle-area dance festival she’s curated since 2008—CHOP SHOP. But this fall,…