When the Night Was Young: PNB's "All Lang", Round Two
- Jun 12
- 10 min read
Updated: Jun 12
Peter Boal and Kiyon Ross have a knack for programming the final rep of the season to entail the kind of sentiment that makes a whole season’s worth of impressions resound in the beauty of the last few performances. The second weekend of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s fifty-third season not only allowed for some of Elizabeth Murphy, Lucien Postlewaite, and Ryan Cardea’s final performances to glow in Her Door to the Sky and Ghost Variations, but to wrap up the season with a flourish in the contagiously joyous ZigZag. Some triple bills by a single choreographer become repetitive, but, as is the case with an all-Balanchine program, three works by Jessica Lang proved to be so vast in style and vocabulary that one would never think to tie them back to the same mind. They are each a world of their own.
Her Door to the Sky exists in a luminous, soft-spun cocoon where time seems to stand still. With its desert hues and clean expanse upon which sailing colors dash, it is a visually opulent work which, even after two weekends, reveals itself again and again to be full of minuscule marvels waiting to be seen. The layers of rhythm made possible by the soft patter of shoes, the fleet pizzicato alighting toe taps that propel them onwards, the bowed arms in a line, and the use of breath are all a fresh burst of vitality. Lang’s sense of equanimity and balance within the work recalls O’Keffee’s own sensibilities and the broad range of her artistic influence.
What I find most fascinating about Her Door to the Sky is Lang’s recurring lack of cohesion–meaning individual dancers finding their own way through Benjamin Britten’s score without unity–that still results in a sense of harmony. Somehow, in the space that is created there, with dancing flitting about with a whim in their step, time seems to stretch. Compared to a work of more rigid structure or physical patterns, there are more places to look at once, more variance to take in, and when synchronicity is found, it is a powerful source.
In the second movement, four dancers find each other again and again with their hands upon each other’s shoulders, and give in to the folk-hued tune that kindles their stamina-driven movement through Britten’s spritely pizzicatos. (Through Britten is English, his “Simple Symphony” feels distinctly American, giving Her Door to the Sky a country tone that far extends the British countryside). Lured by the intricacy of Britten’s musings, in Her Door to the Sky, Lang gives her dancers a Balanchine-like quest to move. Fleet energy arises from her ability to draw out and twist rhythm while making its multi-voiced complexity visible.
Though most of the work is filled with a cheery optimism born of brisk footwork and gestures of connection, the third movement overwhelms the stage with the lush drama of the score. There, in a desert sunset, where illuminated forms melt, Her Door to the Sky reaches a soulful pinnacle. After the work’s premiere in 2016, Jessica Lang denied the notion that the central figure in Her Door to the Sky is an image of Georgie O’Keffee herself, saying, “who that person is, what you see, is up to you.” And indeed, Her Door to the Sky is filled with images that leave one to interpret and feel in any way necessary.
During Elizabeth Murphy’s final performance in this central role, it was hard to see it as anything but a cathartic reckoning of Murphy’s career itself amidst the honey-hued light. It has been nearly nine years since Her Door to the Sky was last programmed, and to see Murphy one final time in it is to be confronted with all the grief and beauty that comes with closing a career. Simply the way she looked heavenward with warm light falling upon her sentimental cheek, or the lucidity with which she revealed the intimacy of a classical port de bra folding into something far more weak and vulnerable…she was bathed in sincerity, and for a few precious minutes, there was nothing more urgent in this world than to watch her relinquishment to the moment’s sacred breath.
It is impossible to imagine Pacific Northwest Ballet without Murphy’s heaven-lifted air, but there she will remain in memory indefinitely: seated upon Dammiel Cruz-Garrido’s shoulders, spellbound beneath warm colors with wings lifted to the sky; effortlessly reverent.
Far from the bright joy of Her Door to the Sky, Lang builds a colorless cathedral from nothing but haunting piano notes, shadow, and sacred motion. Ghost Variations, with its looming silhouettes and sharpened urgency, is quite intellectual in nature and begs to be interpreted, but it also simply begs to be felt. Ghost Variations is one of those works where, even as a writer, I forget to think. The thoughts fly away into that hazy gray. There is only the precious present and the atmosphere arising from Lang's poignant form.
The intimacy of a single piano, of only a few separated bodies upon the stage, a light with which to cast magnificent shadows, the intensity of feeling spun from such few materials, that is the magic of Ghost Variations. There is a reverence that lives within the walls of Schumann’s score, a kind of maturity born from the solemn ambiance and lingering tension of Lang’s work. The darkened figures that flit in contrast like paper-cut shadow work have a nearly velvety substance to their being. Perhaps Jillian Lewis could not have anticipated how delicately beautiful the silhouette of tulle in motion could be, but such a detail is enough to shape Ghost Variations’ lingering vision.
Though first steeped in the ghostly weight of notes gently breaking the silence, when the piano intensifies, Lang’s movement finds a burdened discontent. Like a hurricane of feeling, Angelica Generosa is a vivid lucidity of desperation with flighty steps that let her toss it all to the wind, an endless hunger raging through the dim gray.
In the same role, Clara Ruf Maldonado’s wild-swept anger is a declarative burst from the sharp edges of each distraught limb. Ever more achingly carved, she is deeply emotive with every fiber of her being.
To name a few more gloriously lingering ghosts: Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan’s deep concern and the richness of her movement quality are imbued with a strength that curls her most viscerally. Ryan always dances with mighty will, and even in a work as tender as Ghost Variations, such a boundless drive marks her passage with distinction. Lang has an angular command of which Madison Rayn Abeo finds every sharp contain, and of course, the heavenly way she exists within the breath of a step is enough to enchant with the glimmer she finds in its sweet stillness. Mark Cuddihee’s deeply intimate and sharpened image in his solo amidst five shadows recalls the far-reaching, cathartic will of his Mopey. And, after spending two reps overseas, Dylan Calahan is deeply present in the sphere of Ghost Variations. It simply pours from him, this rapt attention and devotion that leaves him distinctly poignant. What a gift to have him back upon this stage.
When the lives of Robert and Clara Schumann musically intertwine in Ghost Variations’ final moments, the work’s sole pas de deux reveals intricately devised glimpses of breath-stilling beauty. With Elle Macy and Dylan Wald, that breathtaking quality is there from the moment they float as silhouettes into the airy realm of light and shadow. The clarity of Macy’s port de bra, with silken hands that move like feathers through the air, Wald’s far-seeing eyes, and pure quest to send himself soaring, find a cohesive inner stillness when they meet there in the solemn dark. Molded to their innate lyricism, Lang uses layers of choreographic topography to bridge earth-bound and heaven-lifted heights: a makeshift bench, a swirl of high-flying tulle, warped positions twisted into elegance, and at last, a meditative, crawling melt into the ground beneath them and a final haunting reach.
Through it all, they are weightless, removed from the confines of the earth. They have not only a velveteen smoothness that lets them blur the line between them, but the strength to punctuate it with delicate definitions. Grasping at the darkness and returning to each other again and again, with unseeing hands that find one another, they possess a celestial kind of reverence, a sensitivity to each small molecule of each other and the dark air in between.
I’ll never be over the way that line extends emotion, or how Macy falls into Wald’s arms with a wild relinquishment that declares miles more than words ever could. A glorious lingering breath that leaves a limb etched in memory like a winter’s branch, a grande rond de jambe that carves a crescent moon, steps pricking the earth as if to draw the sweetness from its core…a sense of inexplicable nourishment in it all.
In the span of two weekends, ZigZag has quickly proven itself to be a new crowd favorite here in Seattle. Pacific Northwest Ballet is the fourth company to take on Lang’s exuberant ode to Tony Bennett, and seven consecutive standing ovations throughout the run made it clear that such a burst of vibrancy is a welcome new addition to the repertoire.
The scope of emotion that Lang grazes, and the vast range of mood and style that she interweaves, leaves ZigZag brimming with humanity. There’s something particularly beautiful about dance that is set to the human voice, for it gives movement a certain internal drive that simultaneously seems to make ballet more accessible. Jessica Lang captures the spirit of Tony Bennett’s voice most authentically, and when his own sketch of Manhattan’s skyline trails the length of the stage, his view of the world, and an era of time forever held within his music, is brought into a new light.
From the curtain’s rise, we find them already in motion, dashing through remarkably bright steps that soar with optimism: propelled from the earth, arms open wide. Lang’s combined use of balletic, jazz, and social dance vernacular is full of surprises and brims with an originality that one can never tire of. In 2021, a New York Times review called ZigZag “hopelessly regressive”, but I would argue that despite pulling stylistic and choreographic inspiration from the golden days of Broadway and Hollywood, never once does it feel antiquated. Nine Sinatra Songs, which premiered in 1982, certainly has a vintage twinge to it, but ZigZag’s intoxicating rhythm is born in the present.
In “(I Left My Heart) In San Francisco”, Dylan Wald proves that he really could have ended up on Broadway, but thank goodness he landed here instead. Light as a cloud, and immersed in a dreaming flow state, Wald’s expansive swell finds him sailing along the currents of Bennett’s voice with his heart upon his sleeve. Lang lets us see that the simplest gestures–just the push of a flat hand along Bennett’s “sea”, or the purity of an attitude turn–can be filled with the most distilled feeling. Wald’s deliberate pacing takes these moments and stretches them to their fullest capacity. I can no longer hear Bennett’s longing tune without seeing Wald flying across the dark expanse with the greatest purpose, heart open to the sky.
If “Fascinating Rhythm” could last all night, that would be swell, for Angelica Generosa, Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan, and Noah Martzall are a life-affirming delight in Bennett’s rapturous melody. Jampacked with contagious glee, Lang fills every inch with thrill (shoulder rolls, a kick-full headstand, a cabriole with hands on their shoulders, head bobs, and flapping hands galore). It feels redundant to note the vibrancy that brims through all that Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan undertakes, but in ZigZag, her character is an abundance of full-blooded conviction in both the work’s brightest and darkest moments.
The way that Lang crafts atmosphere is particularly apparent in “Spring in Manhattan”. A silent entrance in the deep blue, a tangible breeze lifted by four dancers rushing by, and Elizabeth Murphy amidst it all, pure refined elegance and flighty whim. It is one of the few sections to be danced on pointe, a delicate whir where soft accents (including the classical pantomime for “to speak”), are drawn out wispily into the mild evening’s stillness.
A moment later, we’re somewhere else entirely. “De-Lovely” finds Angelica Generosa and Christopher D’Ariano inhabiting the duet’s voices as if they are their own, with a whole lot of flair and charm. Their quick wit and bold flair, not to mention the hunger they possess for the quirky, sailing expanses of Lang’s jazz vocabulary, is an absolute joy to witness.
In “Smile” and “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”, both Lang and Bennett are at their most sentimental. And for good reason. The breath that resounds there, as social constellations unravel layers of depth that ZigZag’s introduction never would have predicted, strikes a chord. “Smile” is a beautifully human moment of tenderness, where hands reach to help the other, and empathy lies strung between them. A flow of disconnect and return, of blessing hands over a still form, an arabesque held until it practically sighs, a whole novel's worth of stories told with the brush of a hand and a glance, it is all fully ensouled there in the dark. Here again, Lang’s eye for sculptural choreography resounds in the configurations of these two pairs, and one in particular lingers visually: a circle that miraculously twists upon itself into a carousel-like lift, seamless and beautiful enough to catch a breath.
There could be no more sentimental song to close a season than Bennett’s “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” Dylan Wald, in a dream-like state, with earth-lifting hands and a tender step; an offered hand, two heads upon two close-knit shoulders; the purity of a kind gesture that seems to hold all the good that art can do in this world. There again, another little architectural wonder: three dancers lifted high as a sail with hands over their eyes as Bennett croons “I may not see forever…” before they fall into their partner's arms is enough to swarm the present moment with resounding gratitude and simultaneous grief.
One of the greatest gifts of ZigZag is that it is not only nostalgic or a giddily good time, but it also offers a whole new view on life. Lang has chosen hits that uplift in their tone, and that feel like they could better humanity if everyone would just stop to listen. From “What the World Needs Now is Love” to the sentiment of “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”, which is full of an ever-striving hope (“if we can try with every day to make it better”, Bennett sings), we leave changed and uplifted time and time again. And isn’t that the point of art?
ZigZag is a work so endearingly bright that, as it flooded the stage one final time, I barely dared to blink. Far too soon, that scarlet curtain falls, and there they go on, carrying on in that quiet rhythm forever, ebullient shadows in their wake.
Comments