Review: PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET'S THE INTERMISSION PROJECT at Various Locations

As PNB's digital offerings continue, Price Suddath's innovative "The Intermission Project" is offered free to all from March 8th to March 21st 2021.

The work has nine short segments making up three Acts that you can view as often as you like and in any order, or you may choose to watch the entire 35 minutes in one sitting. The settings are various locations ranging from backstage to a boat dock in Washington State with the dancers sometimes in dance clothes and pointe shoes and at others in street clothes and sneakers, devoid of stage makeup. The videography and editing, by Suddarth himself, are superb.

I couldn't help but think back to the first time I reviewed a PNB digital offering in October 2020 after the pandemic closed theaters. In that instance, the dancers had rehearsed in the studio with masks and performed on the stage with no audience. Live musicians performed wearing masks, and the applause was canned. What a difference six months makes! Suddarth's work is not even close to an attempt to replicate the experience of watching dance in a theater. He has embraced the current normal and created an entirely fresh way for balletomanes the world over to be a virtual audience. Bravo! My hope is that when the pandemic is over, the positive innovations such as this one that the exigencies COVID-19 created will not disappear.

Here's the link: https://www.pnb.org/season/the-intermission-project/performance/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NP21IntermissionProjectRelease&utm_content=version_A&promo=21873 Click it and treat yourself to PNB as you've never seen the company before.