BWW Reviews: PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET Offers NYC Dancegoers a Last Chance to See the Exquisite Carla Körbes

Far and away the highlight on opening night of the Pacific Northwest Ballet's five-day return engagement at NYC's Joyce on October 8th 2014 was the soul-stirring and remarkably supple performance by Carla Körbes. The ballerina, who will retire at the end of the 2014-2015 season, is a mere 33 years old. Watching her dance with Jerome Tisserand in a preview of Justin Peck's "Debonair" to an alternately playful and poignant score by George Anthell was pure delight. The ballet is slated to premiere next month in Seattle and served as the closer for the NYC triple bill.

Körbes will be sorely missed. In an interview for The New York Times, she said to Gia Kourlas, "I have done the company lifestyle for 16 years, and ballet has changed. It is evolving, and we're being pushed in ways that just doesn't feel like it's working for me right now." Those are telling words in light of the on-going discussions among dance cognoscenti about the fact that extreme technique and tricks are often sought after these days at the expense of artistry. In fact, although Peck's choreography and the breezy dresses worn by the women cried out for emotional connectedness among the dancers, only Körbes and Tisserand consistently gave us a dimension beyond that of skillfully executed steps.

The first ballet of the evening was the East Coast premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's 2013 work "Tide Harmonic" to a specially arranged composition by Joby Talbot that is evocative of the ebb and flow of a body of water. Talbot himself describes it as a "water symphony" and Wheeldon has perfectly captured the essence of that aural poetry with liquid lifts and fluid movements for four couples wearing costumes designed by Holly Hynes in varying shades of blue. For the record, Wheeldon and Talbot also worked successfully together for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Here's to future collaborations between the two artists.

Another East Coast premiere, the 2014 "Memory Glow" by Alejandro Cerrudo to a musical pastiche and moments of silence, was sandwiched between the two infinitely more appealing offerings on the program. The best aspect of this ballet is the placement of lights onstage - the floor level portable ones that are usually in the wings and that dancers refer to as "shin busters". The costumes by Mark Zappone were dismal, shapeless garments in gray and black. The choice of those hues was perhaps meant to be representative of the netherworld of memories made brighter only in the glow of the lights, but the effect was a definite downer. Not only that, but the dancers unaccountably were neither barefoot nor shod. Rather they were wearing what seemed to be socks. As for the choreography, there was a great deal of pedestrian walking and running around. Both of these ploys are old news by now and they tend to be so irritating as to detract from the innovative and demanding sections of the work. To the dancers' credit, however, they did a masterful job of performing complicated contemporary choreography, in the same way that their fellow company members proved adept at pointe work and somewhat more conventional styles.

If you're in town and can catch a PNB performance at the Joyce before the end of the run on October 12th, I think you'll be glad you did. There is much to enjoy as NYC once again welcomes the celebrated West Coast troupe, which has been under the artistic direction of former New York City principal dancer Peter Boal since 2005. I hope the company will be back soon!

Photo by Angela Sterling

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