Matthew Renko in Molissa Fenley’s solo tour de force STATE OF DARKNESS, set to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (Photo: Angela Sterling)
“Secrets are dangerous things,” intoned Robert Redford, the quintessential good guy with a terrible secret, in his 2012 political thriller The Company You Keep. Music from this and other spine-tinglers, all in a moody, minimalist vein, form the score to Alejandro Cerrudo’s Memory Glow, the latest addition to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s formidable repertoire.
Andrew Bartee and Leah Merchant in Alejandro Cerrudo’s haunting MEMORY GLOW (Photo: Angela Sterling)
Cerrudo, resident choreographer of the innovative Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, casts a spell with his swooping, gliding movement for an ensemble who keep reaching out to us as if to trying to convey an urgent secret.
Equally haunting was Molissa Fenley’s State of Darkness, a marathon solo to Stravinsky’s epic Rite of Spring which seemed to course through Matthew Renko’s body in all its savage power.
Kaori Nakamura (in yellow) and company members in Susan Stroman’s witty TAKE FIVE…MORE OR LESS (Photo: Angela Sterling)
The program was rounded out by Susan Stroman’s high-spirited TAKE FIVE, More or Less…, set to arrangements of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond for full orchestra, and Kiss, Susan Marshall’s aerial pas de deux set to Arvo Pärt’s mystical Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten. You would have to have ice in your veins not to be profoundly moved by the doomed romance between Carla Körbes and James Moore, dangling and twisting from ropes.
James Moore and Carla Körbes in Susan Marshall’s hypnotic KISS (Photo: Angela Sterling)
– More about this provocative program in our review in Bachtrack. Catch the final four performances from March 20th through the 23rd at McCaw Hall in Seattle. –
