THE TIMES ARE RACING

A dancer is perched on the shoulders of another like a taut bow, her heart open, arms stretching back like an arrow strung for the future. A massive gossamer cloth billows over the couple. The rippling amber fabric whooshes like a magician’s handkerchief to the other side of the stage, igniting the dancers into a flurry of grand pas de chats and pique turns that fizz like sparklers. The way the fabric transforms the performers reminds me of the way a fleeting moment can change everything forever. I think of the time I first heard my infant son laugh when I flapped out a hand towel while folding laundry. Unleashed joyful dancing certainly characterizes Edwaard Liang’s The Veil Between Worlds, first choreographed for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s (PNB) 2021 all-digital pandemic season.

I treasured that digital performance when we couldn’t go to the theater. This is the second time I’ve seen the piece live now and I’m receptive to new layers of meaning. One of those new layers is the privilege of watching Elle Macy and Dylan Wald dance the piece’s signature duet as a married couple. Married last May, their synchronicity and connection are palpable as she dolphins through arabesques, he lifts her around his back in barber-pole-like swirling attitudes, and he slowly lowers her to the floor as she kneels on his hands. 

Wald also dances a solo with envious control and buttery smooth transitions. He finishes a pirouette into a beautifully suspended penché, he rears in a cobra out of thin air, he smoothly descends in a wide-legged plank–his arms like hydraulic spring cylinders. I feel it is especially important to note the effortless quality of his performance knowing that Wald had a metal rod implanted in his tibia last year as a method of mending a persistent stress fracture. He didn’t know if he would perform again. His physical, mental and emotional recovery is inspiring as well as linked to the underlying philosophy of the next piece on the program titled, Black Wave. 

Black Wave is a world premiere and the first work Jessica Lang created in her three-year choreographic residency for PNB. Wave is inspired by the centuries-old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with golden lacquer called Kintsugi. Kintsugi beautifies cracks and serves as a metaphor for how we can transform our human imperfections and breaks (physical and mental) into something more striking for our journey through pain. It is special not only to witness the first night of a world premiere, but also to see the first performance of Luther DeMyer as a soloist in the piece, whose promotion was announced prior to the show. Adding yet another first to Wave is the music by thirty-one-year-old New Zealand composer, Salina Fisher. While Fisher has won awards from the likes of Fulbright and The Arts Foundation, this is her first composition for a ballet.

The work opens with Leah Terada costumed in a long white dress twitching her head glitch-like under a giant branching stage set. Adorned in dark charcoal, Kuu Sakuragi belly crawls towards her. Like dark and light trying to merge—I think of the Jungian concept of integrating the “shadow” or hidden parts of the unconscious. Unsettling violin music adds to the Stranger Things upside-down world atmosphere. As the work goes on, the tree-like stage set designed by Libby Stadstad lowers and the branches become roots. Now there are two couples (one wearing gray and one wearing blue) and a group costumed in gray. I’m not quite sure what each set of dancers represent in Lang’s mental-health metaphor. But perhaps the ensemble in gray represents the way thoughts and emotions have a way of festering unless shared with others. The dancers reach for each other through the branches. As they crumple together, the tree lights up golden, transforming into Kintsugi lacquered cracks. The closing image is of the dancers piled around Terrada’s feet. They anchor her as she drops slowly into Matrix-like hinges that she wouldn’t be able to do alone as she started the dance. She is whole now, with a little help from her friends.  

Taking this kind of communal mood boosting to the streets seems to be the premise of the last piece on the program, The Times Are Racing, by Justin Peck. The curtain rises on the ensemble wearing a riot of sweats, shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers. They dance explosively, except for Kyle Davis, who wanders morosely. Dancers take turns lifting the limp and lackluster Davis. He eventually feeds off their energy and starts a tap-reminiscent routine. Joined by Christopher D’Ariano, they move together jumping, scooting, spinning on the tips of their shoes exactly mimicking each other. Choreographer Peck said he wanted it to be like they were following along on the same Dance Dance Revolution video game level track. It reminded me of a modern-day version of the iconic Gene Kelly Singing in the Rain routine. 

The music, from Dan Deacon’s America album, is a perpetual pulse throughout. Jaunty, sexy, hip-forward walks punctuate the perky marimba percussion, especially in the cheeky duet by Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan and Lucien Postlewaite. While I appreciated the integration of non-ballet movements, some of the repetition made the choreography feel a bit forced like when they repeated a supported K-stand flip and slapped the bottom of each other’s shoes when flicked up through pasé. 

The piece ends with wild abandon—arms flinging, hips shaking, heads tossing. The ecstatic-dance-like energy on the stage is an appealing antidote to our racing society, a balm to what drains us. It reminds me of the community-building mission of the Daybreaker event I attended earlier this year. This growing movement seeks to unite people through the joy generated when dancing together. I remember the DJ saying something like, “We don’t do this because we’re unaware of what’s going on in the world, we do this because we do. We want to help people unite through the oldest method there is–dance!” PNB director Peter Boal seems to agree. To me, the evening overall says that it’s time to stir some good vibes in our daily lives–at the grocery store, walking down the streets. We need to lift the veil that divides us and laugh with infant-like joy at how movement can transform our mood and connect us.  

Pacific Northwest Ballet performed The Times Are Racing, September 20-29, at McCaw Hall. Featured photo of Jessica Lang’s Black Wave. Photo by Angela Sterling.