ballet

Rhythm Nation > Alienation 

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Welcome to The System. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

Anybody else feeling kinda weird about large portions of the world talking to a robot at their job all day, reaching for robot-curated content as an escape, and then trying to touch grass or reconnect with real living things but feeling like you can’t quite find life’s socket, as it were? Plus also feeling a little mopey because it’s dark a lot now? Well then, Pacific Northwest Ballet has just the program for you. 

Like your most toxic, codependent friend, PNB’s In the Upper Room poisons you with its own loneliness and alienation, and then, just as you begin to fall into the void, it wrenches you from your doldrums with fun costumes and lots of aerobic exercise. 

The program’s trio of ballets, which runs at McCaw Hall through Nov 16, includes a timely world premiere from PNB dancer-choreographers Amanda Morgan and Christopher D’Ariano called AfterTime, Dani Rowe’s heartbreaking/breathtaking The Window, and Twyla Tharp’s breathless In the Upper Room, a mid-1980s romp supercharged by Philip Glass’s manic minimalism. If the first two-thirds of this program make you feel like you want to to slink back to your apartment for a spliff and a 45-minute short-form video binge, the last third will make you want to swing dance on the moon. 

Morgan and D’Ariano’s AfterTime presents a multimedia ballet featuring otherworldly costuming from Janelle Abbott, dazzling light work from Reed Nakayama, transportive film and projection design from Henry Wurtz, propulsive (and cleverly arranged) music from Fiona Stocks-Lyon and Thomas Nickell, and engrossing postmodern aesthetics with a big ol’ modernist heart beating at its center that nevertheless speaks to our increasingly post-human contemporary moment. (Haha sorry.) 

Cannot get over these costumes from Janelle Abbott. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling.

The ballet pits two protagonists (performed on Friday night by soloist Leah Terada and corps de ballet member Connor Horton) against a group of dancers called The System. The design elements establish a dichotomy between the human and the digital worlds; the protagonists wear organic and flowing sand-colored (I think) costumes and move smoothly and rhythmically across a blank stage to string music, whereas The System dancers travel in grid patterns, dance in robotic and elegantly spastic ways to updated ‘80s video game music, and wear costumes that look like chewed-up space suits. 

The protagonists’ world is stark. The System’s world is bright, colorful, seductive. After setting up this contrast, Morgan and D’Ariano’s ballet asks: “Okay, what would happen if your best friend-lover-confidante fell into a video game called AfterTime and maybe got stuck in there forever?”  

On the way to answering this question, Morgan and D’Ariano seem to tap movement vocabularies familiar to PNB audiences—and, of course, familiar to themselves as PNB dancers. At one point, The System dancers form an organic mass reminiscent of Crystal Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon. At the ballet’s heart-wrenching climax, the separated protagonists attempt to connect across the digital scrim in a dynamic duet inflected with the language of martial arts and classical ballet, reminiscent of moments from Price Suddarth’s Dawn Patrol. In the protagonists’ early entanglements, I saw reference to Alejandro Cerrudo’s gyroscopic choreography. And I even saw a little Giselle in the way The System attempts to dance the protagonist to death. 

Though I won’t reveal the fate of the protagonists here, these are the fragments the AfterTime choreographers shore against the ruin of our contemporary, LLM robot life, where the “content” production methods are similar — we, like the LLM robots, use old art to create new art — but where a very important difference lies in the intentions of the entity behind the curtain. I think of something the late David Foster Wallace once said in an interview with a real person: “It’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die. In a meaningful way, you’re going to die.” 


As for the standout performances — the whole PNB crew killed it, with Terada very much in her element, which was good to see after an injury. Horton matched her vim and vigor and expressive capacities, which was especially impressive given that he filled in that night. And newly promoted soloist Ashton Edwards thrilled in a duet where they leapt around their partner like loosed lightning. 

Despite all this noodling, I feel like I need to watch this ballet five or seven more times, and hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to. 

(L-R) Corps de ballet dancer Melisa Guilliams and principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy sharing a loss. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

The program then turns to Dani Rowe’s The Window, delving deeper into themes of connected disconnectedness. PNB audiences first saw this incredible work in 2023, and I hope it’s fast becoming local canon. The ballet features three characters: The Woman and The Man, who live out a little romantic life in an apartment, and The Watcher, who lives vicariously through The Woman from an apartment across the way. 

Corps de ballet dancer Melisa Guilliams and principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy reprised their roles as The Watcher and the Woman, respectively, and if any other dancers have performed those roles then I don’t want to hear about it. Guilliams and Murphy are made to play these parts. Despite their difference in age and experience, the two move so similarly—soft steel, athletic elegance. Their twinning styles compound the ballet’s tragedy; suggesting that they share not only a loss in the death of The Man (played on Friday by D’Ariano, who turned in a stellar performance as a princely boyfriend, executing effortless lifts and extensions) but also the loss of what could have been a fruitful friendship. 

We begin in prison. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

After two Very Deep ballets, Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room hits the sensorium like a bright red firetruck. The scene looks like a Jane Fonda exercise video set in some fabulous prison. An extremely capable PNB ensemble stands onstage in black-and-white pin stripe jumpers. (Over the course of the ballet, they’ll start losing articles of clothing, revealing more skin and pops of red.) A racing score from Philip Glass starts up and does not stop. Neither do the dancers. The whole thing feels like watching a ballet at 1.5 speed, with twelve dovetailing mini-acts replete with steps from the worlds of jazz and swing. Dancers never keep a partner for long, and they all look like they’re having as much fun as anybody could possibly have on a treadmill. 

Corps de ballet member Destiny Wimpye (left) showcased incredible athleticism, huge jumps, and beautiful extensions throughout the performance. Photo Credit Angela Sterling.

In the context of this program, In the Upper Room provides the antidote to all the darkness and alienation—light, rhythm, movement, music, sharing space and sweat with people in real life! And of course, a smoke machine turned on full blast.

Jewels Is Forever 

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If you would like to enjoy the glory and grandeur of life, then go to the ballet this weekend. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s Jewels, which runs through October 5 at McCaw Hall, kicks off the company’s 2025-26 season with a dazzling modernist masterpiece that feels kind of crazy to consider in this moment. 

This week the president signed an executive order criminalizing anyone who disagrees with him, authorized troop deployments to Portland, and drew coverage for massive financial corruption scandals. As billionaires sell off what’s left of our democracy to enrich themselves and other tyrants, PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal wants us to watch dancers turn into (truly impeccable) fancy necklaces (beautifully designed by Jérôme Kaplan) and entertain little romances onstage (that actually cleverly subvert normie gender roles, as I explain here).  

A less glib summary of the ballet’s content makes the show seem even crazier to consider. The evening-length jewel case opens with Emeralds, an ode to French classical ballet that comes complete with lots of courtly movement, long, flowy tutus, and dreamy, impressionistic music from Gabriel Fauré. Rubies turns up the energy and brings us back to America’s roaring ‘20s with its vibrant, jazzy dance numbers that step-ball-change all over Igor Stravinsky’s Capriccio. For the grand finale, Diamonds transports us to imperial Russia. Twelve chandeliers illuminate glittering ballerinas doing swarm arms as they glide regally across the stage to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3 in D major, an expansive piece that juxtaposes Romantic melodies with all the stately grandeur of St. Petersburg. 

In this moment of particularly unrestrained American imperialism, why are we looking back longingly to an era when the French monarchy arguably used ballet as a distraction to shore up its own power, back to the US’s Gilded Age, and back to pre-revolutionary Russia? 

Hang it in the Louvre, folks. Or, I guess, in the Tretyakov. Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

Similarly pedantic and moralizing audience members may have raised these very same questions back in April of 1967, when legendary choreographer George Balanchine debuted this show with the New York City Ballet at the New York State Theater (which is now the David H. Koch Theater) just days after hundreds of demonstrators burned their draft cards down the street in Central Park during mass anti-war protests. For those sorts of audience members — those who can’t quite shake off the morning news before entering the theater — I encourage you to dig a little deeper. 

The genius of Jewels lies in Balanchine’s choice to ditch the naive narratives of those older eras while retaining and updating their traditional movements and styles. Though narrative vignettes do emerge from the steps occasionally, Balanchine’s approach mostly just gives us the stones, and we provide the stories that gather around them. 

When Boal last ran this piece back in 2017, for instance, I obsessed over the ballet’s symmetrical patterns. During this go-round, I picked up on the play between permanence and impermanence, a paradoxical quality shared by ballet and jewels alike. A diamond is forever, but shine a klieg light on one and watch it constantly shimmer and change. Similarly, a performance only lasts for one night, but its movements are grounded in long and definable dance traditions. Small moments and structural facets of the Jewels, such as the clock-hand movements in Emeralds, the fact that Balanchine reportedly created most of these lead roles to show off his particular group of dancers in that moment, and the very personal selection of dance schools all gesture toward his obsession with timelines and timelessness in this piece. 

All that blathering aside, Jewels does more or less serve as a kind of skill test for a ballet company, and PNB’s current crop passed with flying colors. 

Opening night blessed soloist Amanda Morgan with access to the full spectrum of her powers. She floated across the stage in her turns during the second, more introspective solo in Emeralds, and she shimmered with pluck and verve in Rubies.

Soloist Amanda Morgan, killing ’em softly. Photo credit: Angela Sterling

Meanwhile, on Saturday, soloist Madison Rayn Abeo turned in a casually flawless debut as the center-cut emerald. She expressed serenity and restraint without coming off like Glenda the Good Witch, held the long arm and leg extensions like a champ, and nailed the little coquettish Frenchy hand gestures sprinkled throughout the choreography. Solid work. None of that is to diminish principal Elizabeth Murphy’s opening night performance, which excelled in its lyricism and control, but that’s no surprise. 

What was a surprise was corps de ballet dancer Dylan Calahan impressing the crowd with quick spins, big jumps, and a commanding stage presence on Saturday during his trio with Melisa Guilliams and Juliet Prine. The program says he’s been working since 2022, but I feel like I’ve never really seen him — now I’ll be keeping an eye out. 

Cannot stress enough how mesmerizing Kaplan’s costumes are, especially under the command of principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy. Photo credit: Angela Sterling

The Friday and Saturday casts offered two different takes on all the jazzy dancing in Rubies. Principals Jonathan Batista and Angelica Generosa cut a rug. They skipped across the stage at speed, laughing and tapping and clapping, the chemistry between them popping and sizzling. On Saturday, principal dancer Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and corps de ballet dancer Noah Martzall projected a similar level of playfulness, but their syncopations seemed softer and smoother, their energy a little more contained. 

But without question, the Rubies MVP of the weekend goes to corps de ballet dancer Ashton Edwards, who was the picture of precision as the sultry soloist. Lots of glam, lots of attitude; all while executing some insane leg extensions and an exquisitely timed courtship with four men. The audience went nuts every time they stomped and shook and shimmied onstage, and rightfully so. 

Principals Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista, relying on some good ol’ fashioned centrifugal force. Photo credit: Angela Sterling.

As with Rubies, so with Diamonds — the Friday and Saturday casts allow you to choose your own adventure. Tchaikovsky’s symphony balances stately brass with long, yearning, romantic melodies. Principal Leta Biasucci’s deeply musical, impassioned movement picked up on the symphony’s latter tendency, whereas Elizabeth Murphy’s statuesque poise and power picked up on the former. 

I will say that Biasucci was on another fucking level on opening night, though. Of all the dancers on both nights, she seemed the most in tune with the orchestra, holding a pose longer or spiking it depending on the sounds drifting out of the pit. 

Principal Lucien Postlewaite, who will retire at the end of the year, and Benjamin Freemantle, who joined PNB as a guest for this show, grounded Diamonds with gravitas. Postlewaite effortlessly lifted Biasucci, spun with speed, and played the prince of the mother country with aplomb. Sometimes mercenaries can have trouble fitting in, but Freemantle seamlessly integrated. His clean lines and regal demeanor can come back any time he wants.

In short, Jewels is just gorgeous, and you should go see it. And you should blow a bunch of money while you’re there, especially now, because everyone who makes the ballet run could use some extra cash, as evidenced by the union workers standing outside McCaw Hall over the weekend fighting for a fair contract. 

Members of IATSE Local 15, which represents the interests of the stagehands and theater techs responsible for every object that moves or blinks or squeaks onstage, are working on an expired contract. According to a petition they’re passing around, union members say PNB management proposed “unacceptable rollbacks” at the table, including “cutting back overtime calculations, cutting back our jurisdiction, reducing our safety standards, and proposing substandard wages.” They’re calling for management to withdraw those proposals and return to the table to bargain in good faith. 

In an email, a spokesperson for PNB says, “We have worked diligently on a contract that matches how work has been done by union stagehands at PNB for decades and have not asked IATSE to give up anything in the process. Local 15 has only made gains in this negotiation and we are struggling to understand their refusal to take these significant wins that would provide them with a contract that stands out among peer organizations for the benefits it provides.” 

I’m a union man now (I work as a Communications Director at UFCW 3000), so I say let’s give management a little more confidence in their coin purse by filling the auditorium this weekend, and let’s stand with workers as they fight for a good contract.

PNB’s Roméo et Juliette Is in Good Hands 

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Soloist Clara Ruf Maldonado and principal Lucien Postlewaite, reaching out across the divide in their roles as Juliette and Roméo. Clean lines, people. We call these clean lines!! Photo: Angela Sterling

I’ve raved about Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette for years, but this year marked the first performance in quite a while without former PNB principal Noelani Pantastico tumbling across the stage in her signature role as a rambunctious, hopelessly romantic Juliette AND ALSO the first performance without former PNB principal James Yoichi Moore bouncing around the stage in his signature role as the bubbly and charming Roméo. Tough tights to fill. 

But my nerves settled knowing that PNB tapped Pantastico and her partner, the talented choreographer Bruno Roque, to stage the show. True to form, Pantastico’s and Roque’s direction maintained all the powers of the earlier performances — the bawdy humor, the cinematic storytelling, the endless pining, the screaming pain, and the way the ballet expresses its biggest ideas in its tiniest gestures — all while making room for the new crew of dancers to make the roles their own. 

Now THIS is some premium flouncing. (L-R Soloist Christian Poppe, Postlewaite, and Principal Kyle Davis) Photo: Angela Sterling

As a rule, I find story ballets boring—too much empty flouncing. But Maillot’s version of Shakespeare’s tale of woe, which runs at McCaw Hall through April 20, is the exception to that rule, especially in the hands of Pantastico and Roque. While many story ballets feature a lot of fluff and tutus parading for the king, this one gives us three well-structured acts layered with complexity. Act I introduces the players and commences with the fun and games. Act II sparks the romance and commences with the sex and fighting. Act III brings it on home and commences with the killings and tragedy. 

Maillot’s brilliant stagecraft shines through in a million ways. His use of textiles, for instance, subtly reinforces the theme of love as both poison and cure. On one hand, a piece of Rosaline’s dress sparks desire, The Nurse’s rag pulls Juliette onstage for the first time, and a satin sheet protects the lovers from the audience’s prying eyes. On the other hand, Roméo’s dropped jacket gives him away, a bloody rag seals Tybalt’s fate, and Juliette pulls a long, red sheet from her true love’s chest at the ballet’s tragic end. Moreover, Maillot’s focus on textiles cleverly references the “text” on which he bases the ballet—the two words, text and textile, share the Latin root meaning “woven.” Fitting, given that artists weave both stories and cloth. 

But of course, we see the stagers’ hands most readily in the quality of the performances, which were tremendous all around. 

You ever just float off the ground due to the pure power of romance? Photo: Angela Sterling

Opening night reunited soloist Clara Ruf Maldonado and principal Lucien Postlewaite, who appeared to be still buzzing with the creative chemistry they developed in February’s production of Jerome Robbins’s Afternoon of a Faun. In that show, the young upstart and the veteran moved with one mind to Claude Debussy’s eponymous prelude, as if they were different fragments of the choreographer’s lackadaisically erotic, sylvan dream. 

Though Postlewaite has danced the role of Roméo with Pantastico about a million times over the years, on Friday his performance felt as fresh and as impassioned as ever. Somehow, that grown-ass, 40-year-old man can still believably transform into a lovestruck teenager panting with desire and overflowing with hormones. And yet, his skill and bearing brought a noticeable gravitas to the role. With his back against the wall on Juliette’s not-quite-yet-death-bed, he wept as if he’d known this love for ages, as if he’d lost it a thousand times. 

Maldonado picked up the torch—or, in this case, the blood-soaked sheet—from Pantastico and ran with it. Maldonado’s Juliette began the ballet all anxious knees and elbows, softened into a kind of puppy-dog love at the sight of Roméo, and projected a pain beyond her years by the end. And yet, throughout the show her technical prowess and general gumption conveyed the kind of strength and agency that Pantastico imbued into her version of the character. I can’t wait to see what Maldonado does with this tragic figure in what will very likely be a long and storied career. 

Soloist Christopher D’Ariano as Friar Laurence. His two acolytes complete the trio. Photo: Angela Sterling

Other opening night debuts include soloist Christopher D’Ariano as Friar Laurence. D’Ariano’s version of the character — the priest in black and white, the door to love and death — was appropriately grave and rigid, cutting sharp right angles through the air like a living crucifix. But he added more fluid movement that humanized his role a little more, deepening the tragedy. 

Principal dancer Elle Macy’s turn as Lady Capulet was magnetic as ever. Her slinky black dresses and her sinuous, powerful movements recalled a spider trapping her prey in a web. Despite her villain-coded character, she moved with grace and palpable grief at the death of her nephew, Tybalt, who was played with an exacting ruthlessness by principal Jonathan Batista.

Capulets, led by Principal Jonathan Batista as Tybalt, havin’ a little fun before the fall. Photo: Angela Sterling

Principal Kyle Davis also deserves a round of applause for his spirited and haughty Mercutio, and principal Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan had the crowd laughing with her comical (and deceptively difficult!) role as The Nurse. 

An ensemble piece like this one demands a strong, multi-talented company that can pair high-level technical ability with premium acting chops. With this crew, PNB yet again shows its more than up to the challenge. GO SEE IT.

And, as always: if you think the ballet is too expensive, then think again. You can pay what you can on Thursdays, and there isn’t a bad seat in the house.