Check out this review from Critical Dance:

http://www.criticaldance.org/2014/11/11/pacific-northwest-ballet-directors-choice/?utm_source=Pacific+Northwest+Ballet&utm_campaign=bcb43e7891-14-15Rep2Reviews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f2d9028e9-bcb43e7891-292850565

A Million Kisses and More

A Million Kisses to my Skin, Before After, Rassemblement, Debonair McCaw Hall, Seattle, WA; November 8, 2014

Dean Speer

I was reflecting on Artistic Director Peter Boal’s Director’s Notebook piece in the program where he turns on its head the concept of out-of-town tryouts (the typical New Haven to New York route) by suggesting how appropriate it is now to try out a new ballet in New York and have it actually premiere elsewhere, as was the case with Peck’s new work. I believe we’ve come a long way since the days of artistic ratification and the blessing by hands by New Yorkers, telling us what’s good and what’s not – and leaving us looking to them for these crumbs from the master’s table – there being the unwritten belief that they are somehow intrinsically more sophisticated, or that what comes out of New York is somehow better.

These urban myths are shattered when experiencing pieces like Peck’s or Dawson’s, or for that matter the middle two works of the program: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Before After” and “Rassemblement” by Nacho Duato.

Perhaps it’s hometown pride, but many of us have long felt that New York is no longer the dance center of the universe. We should be supporting and aware that Pacific Northwest Ballet has, for many years, been one of the best ballet companies globally.

While in many ways an ensemble piece, Lesley Rausch was clearly the star of “Kisses”, followed closely by Lindsi Dec and Carrie Imler. The choreography calls for extraordinarily strong technique, attack, and control and they carried out the assignment with aplomb. Ditto Sarah Ricard Orza, Emma Love Suddarth, and Margaret Mullin. Then there were the men – Batkhurel Bold, William Lin-Yee, and Jonathan Porretta – who easily showed the high standard that’s become the expectation of male ballet dancing, each getting their own brief solo to show off and who also complemented their partner’s strengths. Men, as we know, not only dance but partner and have to be in sync with their ballerina – and all have to dance as an ensemble – almost literally breathing as one.

My only fuss is the actual title of the piece. A really, really good work, this is not reflected in its title – while perhaps meaningful to the choreographer, I think it could be more poetic and better. When I first heard the title, it suggested to me a modern dance mood work and not a quick, bright, allegro showcase work to Bach.

In a darker mood is Ochoa’s “Before After” which, through exploring the technique of partnering, looks at the sad conclusion of a relationship. It was vividly danced with great depth and fluidity of resonating shapes by Angelica Generosa and Raphaël Bouchard.

“Rassemblement” is Duato’s Haitian voodoo piece with a small story line, suggesting soldiers that ‘disappear’ local men, leaving bereft and grieving females. While an ensemble piece, its star was clearly Carrie Imler, whose deep second position strides and torment unearthed and underscored this story.

Greatly anticipating Justin Peck’s new ballet (his oeuvre entirely new to me), we were not disappointed but rather pleased – he seems to be living up to the hype on social media and elsewhere. His “Debonair” has a sweep to it that is one part intellect and one part feeling and mood. He had come into the creative process with a plan but smartly allowed his interactions with the dancers inform and redirect the product. With the dancers dressed in brushed-nickel toned costumes, I found the production values rather more bleak than Autumnal and would have liked some kind of backdrop and/or color changes to the grim black back and wing curtains and legs. The work is not at all dark, although it is serious. Suggesting perhaps a ballerina’s career journey – the central pas de deux was made for the retiring principal dancer Carla Körbes, though danced in this performance by Lindsi Dec – a dozen dancers appear at what I presume to be a ball. Dec was attentively partnered by Lin-Yee.

Three corps men – Kyle Davis, Ryan Cardea, and Matthew Renko – got to show their stuff, beginning with a held relevé in effacé devant that was both elegant and impressive. Unusually, the work concludes with the duet couple upstage with the curtain ringing down.

Warming us up prior to “Debonair” the mighty PNB Orchestra, which is celebrating their 25th year, played the wonderful “Praeludium” from Grieg’s “Holberg Suite, Op. 40.”

I’ve lived in many great American cities. Some of them have great ballet and some of them have so-so ballet.  I very much prefer cities with the former!  Seattle is a great city with a great ballet company and it feels so fine!  Thank you PNB and Peter Boal!!

My enthusiasm was stoked tonight because I was lucky enough to attend “Director’s Choice” and I am so glad I did.

Of the four performances within the evening’s program, my favorite was David Dawson’s lyrical, fast-moving, hyper-extended, fun-loving A Million Kisses to My Skin, set to Bach’s lively Concerto No. 1 in D Minor.

In this fairly short and entirely fresh work, the dancers wore various shades of light blue in an entirely empty set lit with very bright and very white lighting. The floor was so white it appeared to glow. The combined effect of color, light and movement was simple, glowing, and crisp. Everything focused on the virtuoso movement of the PNB’s fine ensemble, and they shone in this exuberant, modern work.  It was as refreshing to watch as the fantasy of a tall white iceberg is to look at on a hot summer’s day.  In case you can’t tell, I loved it!

The choreographer had been a dancer with the Dutch National Ballet and he created A Million Kisses in 2000, just as he was preparing to leave the company.  A Million Kisses was written to evoke the feeling of complete bliss a dancer sometimes experiences while performing. Dawson said he had that feeling  “… a couple of times on stage, and it feels just like that—a million simultaneous kisses to your skin.”

At first, A Million Kisses seems completely familiar, for it uses classical ballet vocabulary. But you very quickly understand that Dawson has played with the classic forms, tweaking and stretching them into something completely 21st-century.

I can’t describe A Million Kisses any better than the PNB program, so let me quote:  “The choreography is an expansive, extravagantly free-flowing bravura vocabulary of movement, which sets aside the classical proprieties. Arms and legs are hyper-extended by both men and women, and asymmetry, off-center turns, broken lines, swoops, dips, and swirls are passed on from dancer to dancer as though they are sharing the sheer joy of movement. Bodies are flung in the air and swept into lifts, with the dancers in a continuously changing torrent.”  I’ll say!

Dawson said he “…wanted to create something that was structured in its own musicality….The concerto’s three movements reminded me of my whole experience as a dancer….It was also a kind of goodbye to my classical career. It was important for me to create this piece using classical steps, but also to create a ballet that was about individuality and freedom.”

“Now I have the opportunity to research and create my own ideas” Dawson continues, “Now I try to create works that I want to watch, something that will excite me. I try to be expressive, to use what I know, to try and encourage or direct dancers to be individual and fearless and enjoy dancing, to be big, enjoy their bones, to draw huge shapes with their limbs, and leave behind a three-dimensional piece of art on stage when they are through.”  Dawson said he was aiming for fireworks and I’d say that he achieved them! It was joyful as it was virtuosic!

https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/a-million-kisses-to-my-skin

Another work included in “Director’s Choice” is the world premier of Debonair, by Justin Peck, the New York City Ballet’s rising dancer-choreographer, set to George Antheil’s Serenade for String Orchestra No. 1.

Six couples glide across the stage, the women dressed in exquisite flowing skirts that looked like liquid metal in color, sheen, and movement.

When the PNB ensemble previewed Debonair in New York, the Times described the work as exuding “…carefree exuberance from the start: The men, standing or kneeling along the stage’s perimeter, snap to attention the moment a woman dashes to the center. In this opening section, the stage flashes with translucent skirts as dancers etch the stage with quicksilver turns. They converge in the center, grab their partners and splinter off.”

Here’s the Seattle Times review of today, 11/10/14:

A shy young woman extends her hand to her lover, and then snatches it away before he can catch it. The lover dances for her, trying to impress, while she awaits her turn to show off for him. Together, they embrace then pull apart as if embarrassed by the physical closeness.

These are some of the most stirring moments in Justin Peck’s “Debonair,” which had its world premiere on Friday night at Pacific Northwest Ballet. The 15-minute ballet may not be Peck’s most striking piece yet, but “Debonair” reveals many of this rising star’s choreographic talents.

Chief among these are his ability to subtly suggest character and story, skillful use of the ensemble and sophisticated musical taste.

In George Antheil’s complex “Serenade for String Orchestra No. 1,” played with intensity and flair by the stellar PNB orchestra, Peck has found a multicolored score that lends itself to “Debonair’s” changing moods.

In the first sections, Antheil’s hints of jazz rhythms and cowboy tunes provide the perfect backdrop for exuberant ensemble dancing. The gorgeous costumes by Reid Barthelme and Harriet Jung — long, shimmering dresses for women, tights and vests for men — have the formality of 19th-century ballet but serve as a surprisingly successful juxtaposition to the jaunty score.

Visually it seems almost as though we’ve been dropped into the ballroom scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” with the young couple’s friends replacing the warring families. Each pair expresses its own love dynamic until they all peel off, leaving one couple alone on stage.

The music changes and hints of Prokofiev creep in (more “Romeo and Juliet”?) as the young lovers, danced by Carla Körbes and Jerome Tisserand, begin their duet. Körbes is PNB’s most graceful ballerina, shaping a phrase beautifully and inflecting even the tiniest movement with intense feeling. Tisserand, growing into the company’s most elegant male, is able to match her in warmth and charm. Together they make Peck’s ode to love and longing memorable.

The first three works on the program — David Dawson’s breakneck “A Million Kisses to my Skin,” Nacho Duato’s ”Rassemblement” and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “Before After” — offer a complete contrast. All three are compelling, but “A Million Kisses” is the blockbuster.

The real stars of this program, however, are the corps members and soloists who are often overshadowed by PNB’s dynamic principals. From Margaret Mullin, who dances with an almost scary ferocity, to Angelica Generosa, Raphaël Bouchard, Leah Merchant, Chelsea Adomaitis and virtually everyone who performed on opening night, it’s clear the entire company deserves the national attention it is now receiving.

The remaining two works in “Director’s Choice” include the critically-acclaimed Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s signature piece, Before After, also a PNB premiere, which “unmasks the turmoil just before a relationship ends” according to the printed program.

Finally there is Rassemblement, by Nacho Duato, a poignant work set to slave songs by Haitian artist Toto Bissainthe. The latter “embodies communal yearning and resistance in a climate of oppression.”

You can see a moment of both Before After and Rassemblement, as well as all the other dances in this year’s season, in this video:

While I enjoyed both of final two works, it seems unfortunate to chose dances that are accompanied by recordings, when the ballet has an incredible orchestra at the ready.  But, regardless of the music, there is no question about it, “Director’s Choice” brings Seattle a great night of dance!