From Pointe to Skies, Stars Shine in PNB’s New PNW ‘Sleeping Beauty’
The storied ballet gets a fresh, locally inspired look in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s massive new production. The Sleeping Beauty performs through 2/9.
For digital subscribers, the streaming version is available February 13-17.
As Princess Aurora on opening night of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s world premiere production of The Sleeping Beauty, principal dancer Angelica Generosa’s pure ballerina energy and awesome technical chops brought a fresh magic to an old story in one of the most complicated and expensive productions the company has taken on in its 50+ year existence.
Generosa can cast a spell with a turn of her head. Sparkles from her brilliantly designed pink tutu flashed around McCaw Hall on Friday evening as she stepped delicately on stage and weaved magic with a turn of her hand, followed by a graceful shoulder, and then her face to the audience. Her stage presence was matched by the adoring and attentive Jonathan Batista as Prince Desire. Their onstage partnership has grown by technical and artistic leaps and bounds over the last couple of years; and it’s made all the more beautiful by the fact that both of these world-class ballet dancers are people of color — something so desperately missing from the classical ballet world over the 135 years since The Sleeping Beauty premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1889 Sleeping Beauty musical masterpiece (originally titled Opus 66) endured to score countless versions of stage and screen adaptations. The original choreography by Marius Petipa (who also choreographed the original Nutcracker ballet), did not retain such popularity. The ballet nerds among us may appreciate that much of the choreography for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s new production was resurrected from notes made in the early 1900s by one of Petipa’s rehearsal directors. PNB’s Sleeping Beauty movements contain intricate footwork and wide, expansive, but slow-moving group dynamics. From a historical perspective it is fascinating to observe but much of the soloist choreography doesn’t match the modern ballet dancers’ athleticism, and audiences used to the bigger group action and more physically dramatic choreography in Balanchine and PNB founder Kent Stowell’s story ballets may find this production to drag at times.
Punctuating the slower sections of Act I were stunning performances from corps de ballet members Ashton Edwards as the Fairy Canari and Genevieve Waldorf as Fairy Violente. Both dancers have strong, athletic technique combined with grace and joyful stage presence reminiscent of Generosa’s Princess Aurora. Edwards flits and wiggles around the stage in their short fairy solo, fingers and hands moving in perfect time to the music. Waldorf really caught my eye for the first time in her performance as the dramatic Fairy Violente, pointing around the stage forebodingly, an impish smile on her face. It would be lovely to see her in more solo roles in the future.
Principal dancer Dylan Wald’s performance of the evil Fairy Carabosse was a piece of performance art in itself. Designed by costume artist Paul Tazewell (of Hamilton and Wicked fame), Carabosse’s outfit is bigger than life, a moving contraption of silver sparkles, black lace, white face paint — a total aura of death and dismay, brilliantly carried through both acts of the ballet by the dynamic Wald.
Many of Tazewell’s costumes contain themes of Pacific Northwest native culture, brought to the production by set designer and famous local Tlingit artist Preston Singletary. The bold colors and swirling designs seen in PNW art flow through the costumes and the set, including the primary stage centerpiece resembling a longhouse. Standing on the foundation of an eagle at the bottom and topped with a giant, circular window that looks out onto changing PNW nature scenes, Singletary’s and associate designer Charlene Hall’s sets bring the audience into the world of a First Nations village, instead of the European royal court scene usually seen in productions of The Sleeping Beauty (and many of the popular classical story ballets). While the story itself doesn’t reflect the stories or traditions of First Nations people, the idea of setting a traditional story in a local place and culture instead of the foreign culture of this country’s colonizers does make a lot of sense. Why not rewrite our default cultural settings to reflect the land on which we stand? It’s a pretty smart precedent, even if the execution might not feel entirely congruent with the ballet itself.
Additional design elements — projections of animated birds and growing forests by Wendall K. Harrington and Joey Moro, lighting by PNB company designer Reed Nakayama, and delightfully weird puppetry from Basil Twist — added to the sort of “next generation” feeling of PNB’s The Sleeping Beauty. There are elements in the production to appeal to all sorts of arts lovers — fashion aficionados, puppetry fans, historical art lovers — not just ballet audiences. Twist’s rat puppets, which swirl and scurry around Carrabosse in creepily realistic movements, are a show in themselves. The ballet is long, at two hours and 40 minutes with intermission, but it’s an event. Bring snacks. Maybe if we can open our minds to a new generation of classical ballet, to a new perspective on how to honor the land we live on, the slower parts won’t bother us. Besides, no matter how nouveau this ballet may be, there are still sparkly tutus.
View scheduled casting for upcoming performances here.
The Sleeping Beauty runs through 2/9 at Pacific Northwest Ballet (in McCaw Hall, Seattle Center/Mercer side). Tickets here. Tickets prices vary by seat and show time. Accessibility notes: main restrooms are gendered and multi-stall, with gender-neutral, single-stall restrooms available by most of them. Theatre and common areas are wheelchair accessible.
Run time: 2 hours 45 minutes, with intermission
Melody Datz Hansen is a freelance dance writer in Seattle. Her work is published in The Seattle Times, The Stranger, City Arts, and on her blog at melodydatz.com.