PNB – Page 2

On The Marley Floor…

October 1, 2015 by 4dancers

Maria Chapman of Pacific Northwest Ballet. Photo by Angela Sterling Photography.

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

Her deafening scream reverberated through the studio.

Remembering it and my stomach still curdles. One moment she was doing petit allegro, the next writhing on the Marley floor in animalistic agony.

There are just some moments you never forget.

Moments you wish you could.

And yet these terrifying incidents are ones rarely thought of, let alone mentioned. It must be human nature to sweep the scary under the rug. Like those cheesy ceramic monkeys I often see in vintage shops, we choose to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” superstitiously (and aren’t we dancers the worst?) believing that if we don’t speak it, acknowledge it, then it doesn’t exist. Injury won’t happen to us. We keep the lights on and those monsters “safely” under the bed.

But sometimes, no matter our diligence – how often we ice, how much we stretch or see the P.T., no matter how many “Zzz’s” we get, the monsters rear their frightening faces. And sometimes we end up on the Marley floor.

My “Marley moment” came May 15^th, 2015. And I actually was on the floor. [Read more…]

Curtain Call With Pacific Northwest Ballet: Carla Körbes

June 8, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

by Rachel Hellwig

Carla Körbes shocked and saddened the ballet world last fall when she announced her early retirement at age 33. On Sunday night, she gave her final performance with Pacific Northwest Ballet and the company live streamed the program, giving fans an opportunity to be in the audience, regardless of their geographic location. I was able to watch from Birmingham, Alabama.

Körbes appeared in three of the works on the mixed bill, beginning with Jessica Lang’s The Calling, set to choral music from the 12th-13th century. Wearing a long white dress whose material engulfs the floor around her, Körbes articulated though the tense and yearning energy of the upper body-focused choreography, skillfully channeling her dramatic qualities.

In Balanchine’s Diamonds pas de deux, she brought an Odette-like sensibility to her role, imbuing it with vulnerability and hesitant-but-increasingly-trusting affection for her partner–the strong, stately Karel Cruz. In the touching final moment, when he kneels and suddenly kisses her hand, her reaction mingles surprise and anticipation, as if she were hoping for it, but not entirely certain it would happen.

[Read more…]

Searching For Swans…

April 16, 2015 by 4dancers

Swan Lake Ballet — Jessika in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake. Photo by Lindsay Thomas

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

The dreary landscape stretched out before us as we migrated northward on I-5. Headed to the Canadian border, we were searching for that powdery white stuff they call snow. A ski weekend for him, not so much for me – there’s always the lodge and hot cocoa, right? Sitting in the passenger seat, the scenery seemed to mimic the weariness of my own self, having spent weeks recovering from mono.

And then, in the brown bleakness he saw it. He saw them.

“Hey. Hey babe? Do you see that?” my husband asked me as he drove. “On the left…”

I looked over his shoulder through the driver’s window and across two lanes of traffic to see a field, all white. And no. It wasn’t snow.

Squinting his eyes he continued, “I think… Are those..?”

The little kid leapt out of me as my eyes grew wide with wonder; as my heart began to flutter; as I shouted aloud, “SWANS!”

There they were. A whole field of them. Swans. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. An invisible string tugged tightly on my heart and suddenly my soul felt awake – alive.

“PULL OVER BABE!” I implored. “Seriously. Please. Please?!! We can take that next exit… At the very least drive past them? I just have to see them!”

His eyes smiled at me as he laughed and shook his head.

This invisible string.

This strange connection to these beautiful white birds. Why did I feel so drawn to them? What was it about them that so compelled me? When had this affinity begun? [Read more…]

My Pretty Feet

January 30, 2015 by 4dancers

Pointe shoe “gear” – photo by Jessika Anspach McEliece

He looks over at me with that twinkle in his eyes, and I see the mischievous 7-year-old boy gleam through my husband’s 32-year-old self.

“Come on babe… just do it. Just show them your feet… please?” and turning toward his friends – okay more like acquaintances… practical strangers to me – he proudly says, “You guys have gotta see these things…”

I shoot a half glance-half glare back at him and he knows exactly my train of thought. But how can I be mad at him when he’s looking at me like that? When he’s so proud of them for me? How can I really be that embarrassed by my “worker tools,” as he puts it? After all, that is what they are, callouses and all… And it could be worse… He could ask me to put my leg over my head, or have them guess my weight.

I meekly slip off my loafers and hesitantly raise my gaze to meet their slightly horrified faces.

“Um…. Wow. Aghh… Yeah. So do they hurt? Because they look like they hurt.”

That’s the typical reaction I get whenever pedestrians (non-dancers, that is) see my very ugly ballerina feet – and they are very ugly. Our physical therapist, Boyd Bender, actually keeps a photo of them on his iPhone to show any of his clients who might feel self-conscious about their own toes…

And ever since Center Stage and that scene where Jody Sawyer takes off her pointe shoes to show a very bloody blister (you know the one…), it has been a point of fascination – pun slightly intended.

The funny thing, I find, is what we consider “pretty feet” in the dance world has nothing to do with how pristine they look in flip-flops… That’s relatively easy to accomplish: buff down those callouses and shellac a bit of red nail polish and voila! You’re good to go… ish.

There’s only so much you can do for those bunions…

The hard part is getting those feet to look pretty in pointe shoes… harder still to get the pointe shoe to cooperate with you. To conjure the effect of weightless, effortless floating; balancing or turning on a dime – these are hallmarks of ballet and yet not easy feats by any means. I can’t always blame every problem I have on the shoes, but sometimes they really do have a mind of their own!

Well after 19 years of wearing these mini instruments of torture I’ve learned a few tricks to making them work for me, instead of the other way around… [Read more…]

Jewels: A Multifaceted Ballet

September 19, 2014 by 4dancers

Today we are thrilled to welcome Pacific Northwest Ballet‘s Jessika Anspach McEliece to the site officially as a contributing writer. She’ll be writing about a variety of topics for us, starting with this post about George Balanchine’s “Jewels”, which the company will be performing, starting September 26th in Seattle.

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

It’s Tuesday but it feels like, um, I don’t know… not Tuesday. Coming back to work after a break always gives me that jet-lag feeling, no matter what time zone I’ve been in. PNB dancers are doing pirouettes across the grey marley floor of Studio C and between thinking about getting my foot immediately to passé and keeping my standing leg engaged, my rehearsal schedule for the day runs through the ticker tape of my brain. Confusion. Then holes. Then blanks.

I turn to the blonde girl with hyper-extension for days who’s patiently waiting her turn and ask, “Emma, do we have Rubies first or is it Emeralds?”

“I’m pretty sure we have Rubies 12-1 and Emeralds 1-2 but with the principal couple…” she replies. And yet I can tell that her ticker tape is following a similar pattern by her perplexed eyes.

“Oh yeah. That’s right… But I’m pretty sure Emeralds is only a half hour. I thought we had a break from 1:30 to 4, and finished with Diamonds. Is that just demi women or corps women too?” I reply.

“It’s demi and corps men and women. I think we’re piecing together the finale. Are you sure Emeralds is only a half hour?”

“Ha. I’m not sure of anything.”

Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds – juggling these ballets can be a bit of a handful at first. Yes, Jewels is a full-length ballet. Yes, it has the same choreographer – the genius George Balanchine. All the costumes are designed by the same woman – the fabulous Karinska, and thankfully there’s not a single hair change during the performance… I think. But that’s about it when it comes to continuity.

No two stones are alike, and that is most definitely true of Jewels. Like any beautiful gem, we see the many facets of Mr. Balanchine’s choreographic prowess.

Emeralds

In Emeralds, set to the very French and very impressionistic music of Gabriel Faure, the movement is soft, yet sweeping. The curtain opens to a sea of emerald green: a principal couple dancing amid ten corps ladies who bourrée from one formation to the next, rarely coming off pointe. The effect: a floating, almost shimmering quality–like lily pads glistening on a glassy pond in one of Monet’s landscapes. [Read more…]

Emeralds

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