Ballet Talk with Pacific Northwest Ballet

The ALL PREMIERE program includes three new-to-Seattle dance works and Doug Fullington, Audience Education Manager gives you all the information you need to know to best enjoy this performance. Kyle Davis' A Dark and Lonely Space uses the music of cinematic composer, Michael Giacchino (Up, Coco, the new Stars Wars) and a cast of 24 dancers for his first commission for PNB. Silent Ghost is the second work on the program, choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo. It is an intimate work without being sentimental, and leaves you wanting more. Cacti is Alexander Ekman's response to the culture of arts critics. This hilarious commentary on contemporary dance is a must see (plus you won't want to miss Doug Fullington CONDUCTING the Orchestra in this work!).

Doug Fullington brings you the behind the scenes of LOVE & BALLET. All four of these ballets were choreographed in the last 13 years, Christopher Wheeldon created After the Rain pas de deux for New York City Ballet in 2005 and Tide Harmonic for Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2015. Benjamin Millipied created Appassionata for Paris Opera Ballet in 2016 and Year of the Rabbit put Justin Peck on the map in 2012. Thank you for supporting the ballet!

Doug Fullington dives into the histories and complexities of this mixed bill (called EMERGENCE) that includes Alejandro Cerrudo's Little mortal jump, Yuri Possokhov's RAkU and Crystal Pite's Emergence. Thank you for listening!

Doug Fullington, our Audience Education Manager, talks about how Ezra Thomson's world premiere, The Perpetual State, is inspired by the real-life passing of his father, why William Forsythe removed Slingerland Duet from PNB's program the year it premiered, and the "trigger choreography" of Forsythe's One Flat Thing, reproduced. If you would like to do a deep dive into One Flat Thing, reproduced, Doug recommends visiting Ohio State University's Synchronous Objects.

Audience Education Manager Doug Fullington changes up the regular lecture format, and dedicates the 30-minutes of Ballet Talk to a Q&A for the attending audience. He answers questions like, "do the dancers look forward to this ballet?" and "are there different endings to Swan Lake?". Of course, as always, Doug is an encyclopedia of dance and music history and he has the audience laughing with his replies.

And don't forget, you can always listen to Ballet Talk live, one hour before every performance at McCaw Hall.

Doug Fullington shines the light on the unique-to-PNB works in Her Story. While Peter Boal did not intend to create a repertory including exclusively female choreographers, that's what happened with works by Twyla Tharp, Crystal Pite and Jessica Lang.

We were fortunate to have choreographer Crystal Pite in our studios for 4 weeks as she choreographed and reworked Plot Point. Originally choreographed for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2010, we are proud to present the American premiere here in Seattle.

The evening before opening night, PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal had a few questions for Crystal. Hear her discuss her beginnings in ballet, her own Company, Kidd Pivot and of course, Plot Point.

 

Did you know the first performance of Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds a) wasn't even called Jewels and b) was on a mixed bill that included Prodigal Son? PNB Audience Education Manager Doug Fullington is back with all of his historical fun facts and insider knowledge about how we get our ballets from studio to stage. And don't forget, you can always listen to Ballet Talk (previously Pre-Performance Lectures) live, one hour before every performance at McCaw Hall.

Doug Fullington takes us behind the scenes on the last rep of our season, Pictures at an Exhibition. George Balanchine choreographed La Source to help push an upcoming dancer (John Clifford) to his highest potential, Jerome Robbins choreographed Opus 19/The Dreamer on Mikhail Baryshnikov during the year he was a dancer at New York City Ballet, and we learn why Alexei Ratmansky chose Wassily Kandinsky's work as the backdrop for Pictures at an Exhibition.

Peter Boal does a Q&A with Wendy Whelan, chatting about her first staging experience (with Ratmansky's Pictures at an Exhibition), her new documentary Restless Creature, and how she was recently published in The New York Times writing about her first time dancing a Balanchine ballet (which coincidentally was the same day he died).