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PNB is now a company of 50 dancers, allowing for the comparative luxury of triple casting on most series of performances. Of the four works featured on the current November repertory program, three are triple cast; the fourth (in the middle...) is double cast, offering committed performances from a veteran cast as well as a cast that is relatively new to their roles. Two of the other casts have already been reviewed by the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reviewers. I will focus on the cast from Saturday evening, November 11.<P>The evening opened with Kent Stowell's Dumbarton Oaks, set to Stravinsky's 1938 Concerto in E-flat for Chamber Orchestra, subtitled Dumbarton Oaks, and commissioned by Mr. & Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, the owners of the Washington, DC estate. The music is middle-period, neoclassical Stravinsky; very difficult to play and, in this case, with choreography to match. The work has a surface simplicity and geniality that is emphasized by the "tennis anyone?" costumes, halcyon blue background, and sunny lighting design. Both the music and the choreography share rapid directional shifts, a rapid undercurrent of rhythmic subdivisions with accents that shift and meters that constantly change. I find the piece to be underrated. Granted, it may suffer in comparison to Balanchine and Forsythe, but it is, nonetheless, worthy of being seen and provides a fine curtain raiser. The lead trio is comprised of one woman and two men. Carrie Imler, who joined PNB as an apprentice in 1995, served as a corps member from 1996-99, and is now in her second season as a soloist, demonstrated her solid range of technical skills. Trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and at PNB School, Ms. Imler has been on a "fast track" since her corps years and will likely attain principal rank in the near future. She was joined by Valeri Hristov, who joined PNB as a soloist this season, and by Astrit Zejnati, a corps member since 1996. I was particularly pleased to see Mr. Zejnati in solo roles in both this work and in La Valse. He enjoyed a career as a principal with the National Ballet of Albania prior to his arrival in the U.S., where he attended the University of Oklahoma and performed with Tulsa Ballet Theatre and Oklahoma Festival Ballet. Perhaps this recent solo exposure portends a promotion for him. This is the first performance that I have had the opportunity to see Mr. Hristov. From Sofia, Bulgaria, a finalist at international competitions in Varna and Paris, and most recently a member of the PACT Ballet in Pretoria, South Africa, he impresses me at once with his clarity and precision of movement, particularly in his use of port de bras, hands, upper body and head. A young Malakhov, perhaps.<P>To conclude the program's first section, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux followed a five minute pause. This work was originally intended as the Act III pas de deux from Swan Lake, but was abandoned as "too rhythmically complex" and languished in the Bolshoi archives until 1953. Balanchine intended for the piece to mirror the style of a typical Bolshoi concert piece. It was premiered by Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow in 1960. As staged by Francia Russell, the Saturday evening cast paired principals Lisa Apple and Stanko Milov. A principal since, 1998, Ms. Apple was trained at the School of American Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet School and has performed previously with San Francisco Ballet and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. I was particularly impressed with her intelligence and responsiveness while working in the studio with Melissa Hayden last spring, and was therefore not at all surprised that she carried off her debut in this pas de deux with self-assured flair. Mr. Milov, acquired last season from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, was her partner. There are some obvious reasons why Mr. Milov was hired; his height first and foremost. Variously reported as 6'4" or 6'5" -- he provides a good foil to 5'6" or 5'7" partners who add inches en pointe. There was some initial grumbling from various quarters about a certain coarseness to his performance. Some of this initial coarseness appears to have achieved a certain measure of polish in the present. I am also certain that this development will continue as long as he remains here. (He also had the misfortune of spending a significant period of last season on the injured list.) It is clear to me, however, that there is a significant difference in the aesthetic under which Mr. Milov was trained and inculcated and the dominant aesthetic of PNB, which will continue to be a matter in the process of resolution for a time.<P><BR>La Valse followed the first intermission. Choreographed in 1951, the work pairs a suite of orchestrated piano waltzes (Valses nobles et sentimentales, 1911/12) with a scored commissioned (but never used) by Diaghilev from Ravel in 1920. In Balanchine's hands, the work becomes an abstract psychodrama on fatal attractions. Alexandra Dickson, trained at the Goh Academy in Vancouver and at PNB School, made a splendid case for the lead woman in white, a naif who is inexorably drawn away from the relatively innocuous attentions of her dance partner for the evening (Charles Newton, a PNB School product) toward Stanko Milov's icy portrayal of death. These roles are exceptional opportunities for all three leads, and they performed with passionate precision. Solo turns were also taken in the "part 1" section by Rachel Butler and Astrit Zejnati; Kimberly Davey and Batkhurel Bold; and Lisa Apple and Christophe Maraval. The orchestra acquitted itself admirably.<P>Following the second intermission, the place of honor was given to William Forsythe's "In the middle, somewhat elevated." Created for Paris Opera Ballet on a commission from Rudolf Nureyev in 1987, the work is performed to an electronic score by Thom Willems and performed against a black backdrop with harsh side lighting. The dominant aesthetic of the work appears (to me) to be alienation and its byproduct, indifferent cruelty. The piece requires nine performers to utilize the equivalent of what we, in the music world, might describe as "extended performance techniques." The dancers pour themselves into this work. The Saturday evening cast was a largely veteran cast, most of whom had worked directly with Glen Tuggle (Forsythe's stager) on last season's premiere: Ariana Lallone, Jeff Stanton and Patricia Barker; Kaori Nakamura and Olivier Wevers; Carrie Imler and Jonathan Porretta; and Kimberly Davey and Rachel Butler. The conclusion of this piece causes the audience to erupt in an instant standing ovation. Perhaps they were wise to program it at the end, despite my previous misgivings.
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