Pacific Northwest Ballet Bacchus & One Thousand Pieces Review
March 28, 2024 | Digital
My colleague Nadia saw an excerpt of One Thousand Pieces online during the COVID pandemic, and after reading about her experience, I was really looking forward to the opportunity to see the full work this year.
Alejandro Cerrudo’s piece finally received its long overdue, highly anticipated premiere on the McCaw Hall stage a couple of weeks ago, the hype slightly overshadowing the opener of the double-bill which I feel deserves more attention.
Pacific Northwest Ballet Review: Bacchus & One Thousand Pieces
Matthew Neenan’s Bacchus is a ballet which so perfectly demonstrates the power of artistic cohesion.
Neenan’s choreography fits Oliver Davis’ music like a silky glove; thus my surprise when further investigation about the origins of Bacchus the composition informed me that the piece wasn’t commissioned for the dance. Inspired by a bust of the Roman God of Wine and encouraged by his co-producer, Davis wrote with the intention to compose a work filled with “merriment and mischief”. Yet there is more.
As Bacchus seamlessly flows from one Andrew G. Chiarelli-lit movement to another, we are witness to the ebbs and flows of the human existence as the scrim’s transitioning colors transport us through what feels like different hours of the day.
The thirteen-member cast spans the ranks from corps de ballet to principal dancer, yet this truly feels like an ensemble piece.
The traditional hierarchy of classical ballet is essentially abandoned enabling each artist to shine.
The dancers are clad in Marc Zappone’s costumes, a wonderfully curious combination of neoclassical leotards, flowing skirts, split blouses, and half-kilts. The colors range from deep purples to reds; think blackberries, or perhaps the way a midsummer’s moonlight refracts the colors in your glass of bordeaux.
There’s Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite’s joyful maturity and a playful quartet danced by Luca Anaya, Clara Ruf Maldonado, Kuu Sakuragi, and Yuki Takahashi that personifies pizzicato.
Add the synergy amongst Christopher D’Ariano, Ashton Edwards, and Dylan Wald’s trio and the heart-stirring pas de deux between Angelica Generosa and Elizabeth Murphy, and Murphy’s other romantic duet with James Kirby Rogers.
And last, but certainly not least, James Yoichi Moore. His movements, which run the emotional gamut from calm self-reflection to a controlled, chaotic urgency, seem such an apt reminder that his two decade chapter with the company will soon be closed.
Contrary to my experience with Bacchus, I feel generally unmoved by Alejandro Cerrudo’s One Thousand Pieces. I can’t really put my finger on exactly why, but something about the combination of the fifteen Philip Glass pieces that comprise the score made seventy minutes feel like… well, seventy minutes.
One Thousand Pieces starts off intriguingly with a tethered Miles Pertl donned in suit dropping to the stage for a solo.
Following is a series of vignettes, dancers in socks grouped primarily en masse or in twos, excelling at the intricacies of Cerrudo’s pas de deux creations. Transitions are often pedestrian either through the spaces provided by the upstage mirror panels or the curtains of blue-lit mist. These, along with the hanging shards of glass that appear later, serve to distinguish the work’s sections.
Which is useful because otherwise, the piece would feel a bit monotonous.
Knowing beforehand that Cerrudo had taken inspiration from Marc Chagall’s America Windows, I found myself continuously searching for any parallels yet can only gleam hints of them. Upon reading the program notes after watching the performance, I was relieved to find out that the choreographer was “not trying to tell a story or represent the art”.
I did find glimpses of proverbial light during One Thousand Pieces, though, despite not being totally immersed.
In the first section, Generosa and Jonathan Batista drew me into their world, one where she couldn’t let go of something that he was trying to pull her away from. They moved as if underwater, not unlike a slow motion film that emphasizes moments of intense drama. It was a cliffhanger that left me wanting more.
I was also pleased any time that Wald and Murphy reentered the spotlight, his somehow gentle stoicism so well complementing her expressiveness. She, especially, is a powerhouse throughout and one that I never tired of.
Wald, D’Ariano, and Noah Martzall dance a great trio, a feat of coordination and focus after which I was always able to happily spot Martzall – even amongst his 23 colleagues.
Pertl returns again, this time as if floating in an abyss, while reciting an excerpt from “Knee Play 5” from the opera Einstein on The Beach (nota bene: Pertl has quite the nice voice):
“Two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight.
There was silence between them. So profound was their love for each other, they needed no words to express it. And so they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.”
It sounds like a nice closure, but it’s not. To my chagrin, One Thousand Pieces continues on with sections two and three. I want to love the piece because the Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers are beautiful and the musicians are impressive, but my mind keeps drifting back to Bacchus.
Featured Photo for this Pacific Northwest Ballet One Thousand Pieces review of principal dancers Dylan Wald and Elizabeth Murphy in Alejandro Cerrudo’s One Thousand Pieces. Photo © Angela Sterling.
