PNB

On Love, Ballet, And Sleeping Beauty

February 2, 2019 by 4dancers

by Emma Love Suddarth

Emma LOVE? “Yeah I suppose it is a pretty great last name—thanks!” I can’t count the number of exclamations at the uniqueness of that last name. I can’t keep track of the number of love-themed gifts I received from secret santas over the years—not to mention the number of love-related puns I heard from friends, assuming they were the first. I never thought anything of it. It’s just a word after all, right? Saying goodbye to it as a last name five years ago (not to worry, it’s still there—just sandwiched as the middle now) made me think more on the word itself. As irony would have it, the very act of saying goodbye went hand-in-hand with the true weight of the word. It was an act of love.

More often than not, love is thought of through a fairytale-lens. Here at PNB we are currently deep in rehearsals for the iconic classic Sleeping Beauty—wicked fairies, sleeping kingdoms, flying nymphs, and one brave Price Florimund. It is only by true love’s kiss that he is able to defeat the wicked Carabosse and awaken the beautiful princess Aurora. Love is all-conquering. Even where the lovers might not “win”—Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, to name a few—the love itself transpired effortlessly. According to many iconic movies, books, and songs, love is just a force that we are swept up into. It happens to us, whether or not we are truly aware.

sleeping beauty ballet — Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Ronald Hynd’s The Sleeping Beauty, which PNB is presenting February 1 – 10, 2019. Photo © Angela Sterling.

Yes, love as an initial happening—i.e. “love at first sight”—may come about without direct intent. However, love in a deeper sense, as a continuous, ongoing force, is a decision. It requires participation. Think about anything you’ve ever loved. Pets? It might be hard to love them when they’re chewing up your favorite shoes or shredding your expensive new rug. But you choose to continue to. Ballet—or any other passion? It might be hard on those days when you just want to give up because you can’t execute a single step correctly. But you choose not to. A significant other? It might be hard when he or she makes you more frustrated than ever. But when you love that person in the fullest sense of the word—in a way that requires you as an active member—you continue to.

Along with the decision to continue something, comes the effort to maintain it. Relationships require work; passions require work; love requires work. For love to have moments of effortlessness, effort must be put in. Oxymoron much? One tangible metaphor to illustrate this idea is in ballet itself. As a dancer, think about the most special moments you’ve had on stage. I’ll speak candidly from a personal experience as the Siren in George Balanchine’s Prodigal Son. In one of the more iconic moments, slowly rising from seated atop the head of my coworker Matt—the son—to standing against the front of his shins, my feet not even touching the floor, I felt love; love of the character, love of the story, love of the music, love of ballet. That love felt effortless. However, thinking back on the process, the love wasn’t always natural. There was the constant pain of a golf ball-sized blister encompassing my entire heel. There were the numerous tears from rehearsals that felt like flops. There was the sheer exhaustion from hours and weeks of intense repetition. There was a continuous trail of blood, sweat, and tears that led to that point. When people say, “love is not easy,” I believe this is what they mean. More often than not, some of our most cherished moments experience a similar journey. That’s what makes them worth it. That’s what makes them precious.

Ultimately, we must allow for love. One of my favorite ideas about love comes from a C.S. Lewis quote, and addresses this very thought: “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” While it might seem initially defeating, vulnerability does not have to be a negative. Asking us to be vulnerable means asking us to be open—to be whole-hearted participants. In loving a person, we are opening ourselves up by placing our hearts in their hands, allowing them to play an equal part in the journey of that relationship. In loving a passion, we are opening ourselves up to critique and frustration, because through those can we learn to experience it at a deeper level and find greater appreciation for it. This “vulnerability” lays the foundation for growth, for depth, for richer love.

Watching PNB tackle ten intense studio runs of Sleeping Beauty this week brought many different forms of love to light. None of them were without intention. I watched ballet masters praise tired dancers at the end of the week for a job well done. I saw Auroras push through nerves, pain, even illness. I watched boyfriends and husbands pass snacks to their exhausted fairy-friend-nymph-etc. at every five-minute break. No, love is not easy. But it’s certainly beautiful.

And it’s certainly worth it.

See Pacific Northwest Ballet perform The Sleeping Beauty! Performances run from February 1st to February 10th.

Contributor Emma Love Suddarth is from Wichita, Kansas. She studied with Sharon Rogers and on scholarship at Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and attended summer courses at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Ballet Academy East, and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. She was first recipient of the Flemming Halby Exchange with the Royal Danish Ballet School and was also a 2004 and 2005 recipient of a Kansas Cultural Trust Grant. She joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 2008 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2009.

While at PNB, she has performed featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Peter Boal, David Dawson, Ulysses Dove, William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian, Mark Morris, Margaret Mullin, Crystal Pite, Alexei Ratmansky, Kent Stowell, Susan Stroman, and Price Suddarth. Some of her favorites include the Siren in Balanchine’s The Prodigal Son, Jiri Kylian’s Petit Mort, David Dawson’s A Million Kisses to My Skin, William Forsythe’s New Suite, and Price Suddarth’s Signature.

She is a contributor to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s blog. She is married to fellow PNB dancer Price Suddarth.

“Mr. Fix It” – Meet PNB’s Director of Physical Therapy, Boyd Bender

April 30, 2018 by 4dancers

PNB Forsythe — Pacific Northwest Ballet dances Forsythe’s “One Flat Thing, reproduced”. Photo by Angela Sterling.

by Emma Love Suddarth

“My ankle is jammed.”

If you ask Boyd Bender, the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Director of Physical Therapy Services (and physical therapist), how many times over his years with the company he has heard that sentence, his answer would be in the thousands. He’s a wizard when it comes to mending those ankles that suddenly feel stuck, restricted, or “out of place” from a hard landing or a sudden torque. However, Bender didn’t acquire 30 years of thankful dancers based solely on ankle pulls.

If you walked into the PNB studios on an average Tuesday and felt the need to address that acute back pain that came on yesterday, or that chronic tendonitis that has intensified over a long rehearsal period, you would head straight for the sign-up sheet on the PT board. Bender and his fellow PTs’ hours vary depending on the day of the week, and any dancer can sign up for a 15-minute slot within that period.

The system at the theater during performance time is different; it consists of a dry erase board and markers (which festively turn red and green over Nutcracker season) and a first-come-first-serve type of sign up. The schedule fills up fast in both settings—and the battles over the pen or marker to get your name down first are frequent. While the session time allotment may seem brief, it is only a part of ongoing, continual care. While Bender’s treatment begins at the onset, sudden or not, of the problem, it is rarely a “one-visit” fix and requires regular visits to his table for repeated care. He even acts as frequent liaison between dancers and the sports medicine doctor, massage therapists, or outside PTs (to name a few). The time spent with the company PT is both extremely necessary and immeasurably valuable—one of the most essential elements in a dancer’s career.

Boyd Bender Director of Physical Therapy Services & Physical Therapist at Pacific Northwest Ballet — Director of Physical Therapy Services and Physical Therapist Boyd Bender at work at PNB. Photo by Emma Love Suddarth

In PNB’s case, there are numerous generations of dancers who swear by Boyd Bender’s care. His breadth of knowledge is not just incredibly vast, but also constantly expanding. Not only must his know-how encompass the entirety of the human body, but it also must address the variety of situations that a dance career might require that body to end up in. The physical issues that arise from Kent Stowell’s Swan Lake are very different than those from William Forsythe’s One Flat Thing, reproduced; and, when the transition time between the reps spans only two days, Bender must be immediately ready to address the new problems that the dancers bring in to him.

Bender, his fellow PTs, the company sports medicine doctor, the massage therapists, the company manager, and the artistic director—Peter Boal, who also offers a dancer’s perspective on each work— routinely meet in order to discuss the physical requirements of the specific reps, as well as to keep track of the overall health of the company. On top of that, Bender sometimes watches videos of the pieces prior to the rep as to get a feel for issues that might arise. He compares this practice to a similar one in football—where PTs will also study videos of upcoming competitors to see how and where they hit, in order to prepare as best they can to address the players’ physical needs. However, most of all he prefers to rely heavily on the information the dancers bring to him in the beginning of the process in order to gauge what to expect. While each dancer’s body is different, and predisposed to varying pains and problems, specific trends oftentimes surface over the course of a single rep.

PNB Swan Lake — Pacific Northwest Ballet dancing Kent Stowell’s Swan Lake. Photo by Angela Sterling

During Swan Lake, his table was occupied by a never-ending stream of swans with any number of lower leg problems—a common one being a bad calf. The audience might likely never think of it, but those swans encircling the stage, standing motionless on one leg for the entirety of the 2^nd and 4^th act pas de deux, are aching and sweating more than if they were dancing. By the end of the run almost every swan had a bad right or left calf, depending on which side of the stage she stood. However, three days later, one of those same swans is back on Bender’s table at the studios, attempting to put words to the intense neck pain she is experiencing due to a certain motion of One Flat Thing, which she then gingerly, very cautiously demonstrates. Boyd is ready for all of it.

Thirty seconds after a horrific ankle sprain, Bender is in the room ready to help. Ten years of on-and-off Achilles tendonitis, Bender is still finding new ways of caring for it. His arsenal of tools and skills is immeasurable; whether he is adjusting, lasering, ultra-sounding, taping, massaging, scraping, or even exercising (that’s right, it’s not all passive!) the problematic area, he’s thoroughly monitoring, addressing, and protecting the entirety of the dancer’s physical well-being. I, and numerous others, can easily name more than one instance that I likely wouldn’t have been back on stage that evening if it wasn’t for Bender’s care. You might never realize that one vertebra on your back being out of place is the reason for the shooting nerve pain in the back of your knee—but Bender knows.

And he’ll fix it too.

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s season resumes in June with their “Love & Ballet” program. Get more details by visiting the PNB website.

She is a contributor to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s blog. She is married to fellow PNB dancer Price Suddarth.

Kylián Keyword: Connection

November 3, 2016 by 4dancers

Pacific Northwest Ballet Dancers — ***Emma Love Suddarth and her husband, Price Suddarth from Pacific Northwest Ballet***

by Emma Love Suddarth

Connection. Between fingertips. Between one note and one arm. Between minds. Between spines. Between you and five other dancers spread across the stage. Between steps. Between dancer and audience. Between details. Between partners. Between souls.

The works of Jiří Kylián are set apart—and rightfully so. The atmosphere of complete intimacy they innately craft, both onstage amongst dancers and across the proscenium with the audience, is unique, and invaluable. At Pacific Northwest Ballet I’ve been lucky enough to perform two already—Sechs Tanze and Petite Mort—and, for the upcoming program Brief Fling, am working to add a third—Forgotten Land. These works hold special places in my heart, not only due to special opportunities, or incomparable partners, but largely due to the joy, trust, intimacy, and fearlessness they inherently create.

My first experience with the work of Kylián came and went in a blur. As a fairly new dancer in the company, simply learning one of the four women of Sechs Tanze was an unbelievable thrill. As a PNB “newbie,” I had no expectation of performing; nevertheless, I was drenched in sweat at the end of every rehearsal because, after all, who wouldn’t want to try being dragged across half the stage in a split, simultaneously going up and down like a carousel, or doing bicycle legs as fast as humanly possible in the air while laying on your partner’s back? It was hard to resist. Then, due to last minute injuries, I got a shot. However, this simultaneously exciting and potentially nerve-wracking experience was different than almost any previous or many since. [Read more…]

Inside My Dance Bag: Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Emma Love Suddarth

May 4, 2016 by 4dancers

PNB dancer Emma Love Suddarth — **Emma in David Dawson’s A Million Kisses to My Skin, photo by Lindsay Thomas**

by Emma Love Suddarth

Laptop… billfold… Ziploc bag of toiletries… socks… binder… normal Tuesday. Pointe shoes? Foot thongs? Tennis ball? I always wonder what the TSA security officers think when they watch our dance bags go through the x-ray scanners at the airport. Whenever PNB travels on tour, I’m careful to triple check that all those “necessities” we dancers just can’t be without make it into my carry-on—you know, just in case. Sometimes it seems that my carry-on somehow ends up heavier than my actual suitcase. On a normal day in the Seattle studios though, what’s in there?

Naturally, I have the number one ballet-company-related necessity: pointe shoes. Seeing as we are currently performing—meaning traveling back and forth from studio to theater—I have far more pairs in my bag than I should. Another example of the just-in-case. Of course, those pointe shoes come with the necessary accessories, such as toe pads, spacers, toe tape, and a sewing kit, ready for the next pair to enter circulation. A single pair of flat shoes is in there as well, to use for class and the occasional rehearsal. A pair of foot thongs has kept up residence in my bag as well, perhaps for far longer than they should. I used them for Petite Mort a couple seasons back. Nostalgically I find them hard to part with—I treasured dancing that ballet, a favorite, with my husband, another favorite. They might stick around a little longer.

Emma's dance bag — ***Emma’s dance bag***

Next, a dancer always seems to have a number of therapy-related items. We require so much of our bodies on a daily basis that the least we can do in response is care for them as best we can. In my arsenal I keep anti-inflammatory gel, Advil, a theraband, a couple of different-sized balls for rolling, and, a trusty pet store tennis ball. I find it comforting to be reminded of our two rambunctious dogs at home every time I pull that one out.

Lastly, there’s always a handful of warmups every dancer relies on. From my bag I pull a pair of well-loved legwarmers, a cozy turtleneck (the theater is always colder so it’s long-sleeves for now), my favorite—not to mention super thick—socks that just happen to be covered in sock monkeys, and a pair of bright orange sweatpants. Ask anyone at PNB and you’ll receive the same answer, “Emma does not wear bright colors.” It’s true; I’m a gray and blue kind of girl. However, I absolutely love my bright orange sweatpants. Maybe it’s related to the fact that Price—my husband—has always loved orange, or maybe they’re just great pants. Maybe it’s just me, but when it comes to doing pliés in those guys on a Monday morning—somehow they go just a little bit better.

PNB ballerina — **Emma Love Suddarth, photo by Lindsay Thomas**

She is a contributor to Pacific Northwest Ballet’s blog. She is married to fellow PNB dancer Price Suddarth.

But He Married A Ballerina: The Real Husbands Of Pacific Northwest Ballet

March 18, 2016 by 4dancers

***Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Jessika Anspach McEliece with husband Ryan.***

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

Sitting on the couch, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, he picks up the guitar positioned next to him. Leans back. Begins to strum.

“Okay. Well… You can’t be ah… playing. I guess you can play the guitar the whole time if you want to…” I eek out as I place the iPhone down on the coffee table in front of us. Recording his music, and my passive aggression.

“Why not?” he replies.

“… like a bro…” I continue, disregarding his objection.

“Total bro.” He smiles sarcastically.

“For the record my husband is a total bro,” I facetiously and falsely declare.

“Off the record I am not, but you can tell people that…”

I may have married a “bro”, but he married a ballerina.

The life of a dancer seems to be one of mystery and intrigue. I mean how many movies and reality TV shows are out there that try to plumb the depths of this strange world? Because let’s be honest, it’s strange…

And yet how realistic is Center Stage or Flesh and Bone? What’s this life really like? Not the super-stereotyped, ballet-on-steroids version – the honest, every-day truth. Are we really these crazy creatures that Hollywood makes us out to be? Who better to ask than the husband of a dancer – and yes, many do manage to work marriage into the mix. I mean after all, husbands have both the front row and backstage perspective.

To get the real story I interviewed three husbands of Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers: Karel Cruz – a principal dancer married to fellow principal dancer Lindsi Dec; Michael Merchant, married to the newly-promoted soloist Leah Merchant; and of course my dear sweet (non-bro) husband Ryan McEliece.

But how does one meet “The One” when, to be frank, the schedule and demands of this profession seem to hinder the spouse-finding process? From my vantage point when I joined the company most of the dancers at PNB were either very single, or very married. How does one traverse the chasm that separates these two sides? To me the options seemed limited – date a dancer, or well… yeah. Tinder? Match? Miracle?

Karel Cruz

“How did you meet your wife?”

Another couch. Another coffee table. Different place. Different guy… So totally different…

He rustles through a brown paper shopping bag up in PNB’s company lounge, pulling out his lunch as I pull out my Moleskin notebook and pen. The definition of “tall, dark and handsome,” Karel energetically bites into his sandwich and you’d never guess he got maybe 4 hours of sleep the night before. He and his beautiful wife Lindsi just recently welcomed into this world a beautiful baby boy – Koan Dec Cruz.

PNB dancers Karel Cruz, Lindsi Dec and Koan Dec Cruz — **PNB dancers Karel Cruz, Lindsi Dec and baby Koan Dec Cruz**

“We met here at PNB when I joined the company in 2002. But we didn’t get together until 2003,” he replied in his heart-warming Cuban accent. “I think because of our heights we were put together a lot. And we both have a lot of ambition… We used to go to the back studios during breaks or after class to work on partnering. We’d rehearse ourselves in Don Quixote and one day Patricia [Barker] saw us and actually got us our first gig dancing together.”

And the rest is history. The on-stage romance blossomed into a real-life one. And by real-life I mean real life. [Read more…]

Karel Cruz

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