Pacific Northwest Ballet Firebird Review
March 26, 2026 | Digital
Titled “Firebird,” Pacific Northwest Ballet’s (PNB) spring program is a multi-faceted triple bill featuring three pieces of entirely different looks and sounds: Alejandro Cerrudo’s prototypically contemporary Little mortal jump, Ulysses Dove’s electrifying Red Angels, and Kent Stowell’s time-honored Firebird.
The program opens forcefully with Little mortal jump. Set to a vastly contrasting suite of music, it is exciting, a bit quirky, compositionally arresting, and by far my favorite work of the program.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet Firebird Review
Breaking convention, Little mortal jump begins offstage in the orchestra, where a dancer suddenly runs down the aisle from the back of the house and vaults onto the stage. As I sat waiting for the usual cues the performance was about to begin – lights dimming and orchestra tuning – the interruption caught me off guard and immediately snapped me into attention.
The piece unfolds in a series of intimate duets and powerful ensemble sections. The dancers, dressed in varied monochrome designed by Branimira Ivanova, are top-notch, owning Cerrudo’s complex vocabulary with virtuosic clarity. Of the bunch, Leah Terada is an eye-catch for her razor-edge precision and sinewy strength.
Marking the second contemporary piece in the rep, Red Angels fights to live up to Little mortal jump‘s afterglow.
Only 14 minutes, Red Angels is a short-lived string of aggressive fits, each full of tension and sharp angles. The choreography, hedging Balanchine, demands incredible speed and attack to match the prickliness of Richard Einhorn’s electronic violin score.
Unsurprisingly, the PNB dancers - sleek in Holly Hynes’ firetruck red unitards - achieve this with flying colors.
The piece is set on a modest cast of four, performed in this recording by Amanda Morgan, Christopher D’Ariano, Clara Ruf Maldonado, and Lucien Postlewaite who is celebrating his final season with PNB.
As the opening pair, D’Ariano and Morgan were a picture of athleticism and finesse, using their compatibly ever-extending limbs to take up as much space as possible while still managing to meet the often breakneck pace of the score.
Maldonado and Postlewaite, whose dancing seem instinctive, were a likewise scintillating pair.
The program ends on a classical note with the long-awaited return of Stowell’s Firebird, an easy-to-follow one-act ballet based on Russian folklore. Set to Stravinsky, it tells the story of a lovestruck prince who defeats an evil sorcerer with the help of the Firebird.
Stowell’s version, native to PNB and which has not been staged since 2005, is visually striking with sets and costumes by Ming Cho Lee and Theoni V. Aldredge. But it is a choreographic yawn in comparison to the other reps in this bill.
Still, much can be said of the dancers who embody their roles superbly.
In this recording, Prince Ivan and the Firebird are performed by the reliably marvelous duo of Jonathan Batista and Angelica Generosa.
Batista stepped into the role of the daring Prince with his usual equanimity and charisma. While he could (and has), Batista doesn’t impress with technical feats but rather the way in which every step is decisive, recognizable, and musical.
In the titular role, Generosa was nothing short of extraordinary, from the expressive flick of the wrists, spring of an arabesque, and an overall sharpness that could strike real sparks.
Terada was also in the program’s closer as the Prince’s Bride. Clearly being tipped as a future star, Terada is technically tidy and versatile, able to transform from her earlier role into a willowy, bright-eyed maiden. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite PNB dancers to watch.
Featured Photo of Pacific Northwest Ballet soloists Kuu Sakuragi and Yuki Takahashi in Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump. Photo © Angela Sterling.
