Highly regarded and one of the largest ballet companies in the United States, Seattle-based Pacific Northwest Ballet is taking center stage in Spokane — for the first time ever.
"There may be three top ballet companies in the United States, and they're one of them," says Suzanne Ostersmith, director of Gonzaga University's dance program. "It's a pretty big deal that we got them here."
Pacific Northwest Ballet was founded in 1972 as part of the Seattle Opera, performing a smattering of shows before gaining two artistic directors who changed the trajectory of the company.
"Really, the company started to become the identity that we know it as today when Kent Stowell and Francia Russell came to direct in 1977," says current artistic director Peter Boal, who took up the position after retiring from dancing with New York City Ballet for 22 years.
Currently, Pacific Northwest Ballet has around 50 dancers and performs over 100 shows each year, both at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle and on tour in the U.S. and internationally.
"We have a pretty broad reach in the region, but we actually haven't toured much in the state of Washington," Boal says. "It's really nice to have this opportunity to take a trip to Spokane and to show what we've got in Spokane."
Pacific Northwest Ballet is performing at Gonzaga's Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2019 and has two theaters, one with 759 seats and another with 168, which host a variety of music, dance and theater performances and lectures.
"I did take a trip to Spokane about five years ago to look at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, and I was just so taken by that theater," Boal says. "I'm excited to greet audiences there and also to put this show on the stage."
The program is the same on both nights, showcasing acts of classic story ballets, as well as some modern and contemporary ballet pieces.
"A lot of what we're bringing to Spokane is fresh from the stage in Seattle," Boal says.
The evening is set to begin with Jirí Kylián's Petite Mort, which Pacific Northwest Ballet opened its current season with in September.
"It hadn't been done in seven years, so it's just been revived," Boal says. "It's a kind of iconic work that's done by a number of different companies, and it's hard to do well, but our dancers look spectacular in it."
Pacific Northwest Ballet will also perform the Black Swan Pas de Deux and White Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, one of the company's signature works.
Boal says that in Swan Lake, the swan plays two roles — Odette, or the white swan, and the black swan Odile — and is played by the same dancer. For the Spokane performances, two dancers are playing these roles.
"People should expect all the bravura in Black Swan, that's the iconic 32 fouettes, the spectacular high jumps that the male dancers are known for — heavy on the drama," he says. "They'll get the poetry and the lyricism in the White Swan Pas de Deux just done to the most beautiful violin music."
Additionally, they'll be performing The Calling, which was choreographed by Jessica Lang.
This piece features a singular dancer, standing in the center of a sweeping white skirt that Boal says goes out about 10 feet in all directions.
"The dancer takes four steps forward and four steps back, and that's all they do," he says. "It's a very meditative work done to 12th-century music, which is essentially humming and a soprano, but it has a poignancy that I think resonates very clearly even in that brief amount of time."
Pacific Northwest Ballet concludes the evening with Twyla Tharp's Sweet Fields, a more contemporary piece celebrating community.
"It's many of our corps de ballet dancers, and it's about coming together in ritual and in joy and in dance," Boal says.
Gonzaga is also leading a post-show discussion with Boal after both shows, allowing the audience to learn even more about the company and dances they just watched.
"These are the kinds of things that cities need for their communities to thrive," Ostersmith says. "It's such a sparkly thing in the middle of winter." ♦
Pacific Northwest Ballet • Fri, Feb. 16 and Sat, Feb. 17 at 7:30 pm • All ages • $50-$80 • Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center • 211 E. Desmet Ave. • gonzaga.edu/mwpac
