Stage Review - Director’s Choice (Pacific Northwest Ballet)
Stage Review – Director’s Choice
Presented By: Pacific Northwest Ballet
Show Run: May 30 – June 8, 2025
Date Reviewed: May 30, 2025
Run Time: Approximately 2 hours with two intermissions
Reviewed By: Tucker Cholvin
Summer is almost here. Soon, schools will let out for the year, students will graduate, and summer will arrive in full force. It’s a time to look back and reflect, to look forward in anticipation, and to celebrate. At Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB), Director’s Choice ends the company’s season with pieces that offer all three: a satisfying combination of new work, recent successes, and sophisticated classics.
PNB opens with a restaging of “…throes of increasing wonder”, a work that premiered in PNB’s 50th anniversary season in 2023. Choreographer Kiyon Ross has strong ties to PNB, spending 14 years in the company as a dancer. It’s clear why PNB has quickly returned to this piece: it’s easy to love. Ross alternates high energy, frenetic arrangements of large ensemblesand sensuous pas de deux. Jonathan Batista and Angelica Generosa are nothing short of gorgeous in their pairing, and Christopher D’Ariano and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan bring genuine feeling and moments of levity to their dance.
Ross’ piece is also inextricable from its music. Written by Cristina Spinei, the music is almost as present on the stage as the dancers themselves – and Ross makes full use of it. In a 2023 blog post, Ross states that for him, music is essential to creating meaning in his dance: “If it fits well, you can almost split it apart to find the nuances in between the musical notes and phrases to play with.” Ross’ choreography – and the PNB Orchestra’s excellent playing – heighten the emotion with each movement, underlining the joy that Ross seeks to create.
“Cracks”, the second piece in PNB’s program, marks a dramatic shift in tone for the program. The piece is a new work by the choreographer Rena Butler, who states that the piece is meant to ask: “Does fervent worship lead to true transcendence?” The piece is not shy about directly addressing its religious themes: stained-glass lights whirl around the stage while dancers, clad in Catholic schoolgirl-like costume, take on movements that appear, at moments, pained, frantic, wrestling with furtive desire. A twelve-member choir singing classical hymns from the orchestra pit is occasionally interrupted by crashing, collapsing sounds from offstage; perhaps gargoyles coming loose from their perches and falling to earth. In a week that saw virulent evangelical prayer groups face off with counter-protestors in Capitol Hill, the piece is certainly timely, and stands out against the context of PNB’s usual repertoire. But it seems clear that Butler doesn’t find much transcendence inside the church, and the dance itself feels earthbound.
To end the program, PNB returns to “Nine Sinatra Songs”, a 1982 piece by Twala Tharp that hasn’t been seen by PNB audiences in over a decade. Its return is extremely welcome. On its surface, Nine Sinatra Songs can seem elegant and uncomplicated, with dancers in Oscar de la Renta gowns and tuxedos dancing to timeless American classics. Under a giant disco ball, it’s sexy, fun, and nearly irresistible.
But for an audience in 2025, watching a piece that Tharp createdin 1982, using 1950s music and ballroom dance styles as grist for her mill – there is more to the story. In our political presentthat is gripped by nostalgia for a hazy and undefined “greater”period, and often paralyzed by gender expression, what should we make of strictly male-female duos dancing gracefully to Frank Sinatra standards? Does it tempt into a lay back into a sense of soft-focus nostalgia? Or is Tharp winking at us, letting us gaze at something that feels familiar but that never really quite existed?
With the end of the theatre season upon us, Pacific Northwest Ballet sees no better time than this to reflect, celebrate, and do a little looking forward at the same time. With Director’s Choice, PNB has done all three with the beauty, elegance, and precision they are known for. And beneath all the beauty on offer, these dances are rich with emotion – sometimes passion, and sometimes conflict – that suggests that there is more than meets the eye, for those willing to peer a little deeper.
Director’s Choice, presented by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, runs on stage McCaw Hall in Seattle through June 8. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.pnb.org/.
Photo credit: Angela Sterling
