ALL LANG!!
Dang, that was fun.
The first time I saw choreographer Jessica Lang’s work was more than a decade ago in 2015. Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) had put one of Lang’s solos on the bill for a farewell performance by former PNB principal dancer Carla Körbes.
The Calling, roughly four minutes long, is set to an anonymous vocal piece composed hundreds of years ago. The dancer, clad in a voluminous white skirt, moves slowly, twisting and dipping in a stage ritual that took my breath away then and in every subsequent performance I’ve had the great fortune to see. Here is an excerpt of Dylan Wald performing it about a decade ago.
In the years since then, I’ve had chances to see more of Lang’s work, both performed by her former eponymous dance company and now in the midst of her three-year artist residency at PNB. The ballet company unveiled its final program of this artistic season on Friday, May 29. Although The Calling isn’t on the ALL LANG bill, PNB presents Seattle-area audiences with three diverse Lang works that only hint at the breadth of talent this choreographer brings us.
Years ago, PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal told me that he wanted to build repertories by particular choreographers so audiences could get a sense of the scope of each one’s artistry. Boal has done that with Twyla Tharp, Alejandro Cerrudo and Crystal Pite, among others. ALL LANG adds Jessica Lang to the menu.
The evening starts with Lang’s 2016 ballet Her Door to the Sky, inspired by painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s mid-20th century Patio Door series. The cast, featuring retiring principal Elizabeth Murphy, wear costumes designed by Bradon McDonald in what I imagine to be desert sunset colors: dusty orange, purple, pink and turquoise. The colors are also featured in Nicole Pearce’s lighting design. The result is a stately, visually arresting dance that remains beautiful after multiple viewings.
Her Door to the Sky was co-commissioned by PNB and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, but it was only the first of Lang’s large works for PNB. She’s created a growing body of dances, some of which feel as sacred as The Calling. Others simply revel in the beauty of bodies moving in space.
While they might differ stylistically, they share an underlying intelligence and a worldview that unites human dreams with the natural world. This sounds heady, but Lang has also experimented with works for audiences of all ages, like her hour-long Momotaro, an adaptation of a Japanese folktale about the legendary “Peach Boy” who helps to save his village.
Lang calls herself a visual artist who happens to work in the medium of dance. I would add that she’s a thinking person’s artist and whether you love or dislike her work, you always want to find out more about it.
In 2020, when the COVID pandemic was in full swing, Lang created the evening’s second dance, Ghost Variations, which debuted originally on video.
The ALL LANG version this year was performed live, but like the digital debut, the small cast of dancers is presented in duets with shadows, or in the case of a fabulous solo by company member Kuu Sakuragi, in tandem with five of his own shadows. The music, composed by both Robert Schumann just before he was confined to a mental asylum and by Schumann’s widow Clara, was performed onstage by pianist Christina Siemens. Lang writes in the program notes that Ghost Variations was always intended to be performed for a live audience. This ballet has moments of whimsy but to me, like The Calling, the overall feeling is reverential.
PNB’s lighting designer Reed Nakayama created the sumptuous onstage look that blends the shadows with three-dimensional dancers in shades of gray, with Siemens seated at the rear of the stage. The dancing takes place both onstage and offstage.
I have to mention what felt like a highlight of this ballet: the long-awaited return of principal dancer Elle Macy to the McCaw Hall stage. She and her husband, the wonderful Dylan Wald, partnered in Macy’s first full-on dancing role since surgery and rehabilitation. It was sublime to watch them together. All of the cast members were excellent, but for me, Macy and Wald’s partnership elevated Ghost Variations beyond excellence to transcendence. I have seen this work at least three times now, and it is fresh and surprising each time.
The last piece on the ALL LANG bill, ZigZag, was the Seattle premiere of a joyful, frothy 2021 ballet originally commissioned by and for American Ballet Theater and set to songs performed by the late Tony Bennett.
PNB’s ZigZag featured an excellent two-part cast. Six principal dancers (Angelica Generosa, Elizabeth Murphy, and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan along with Christopher D’Ariano, Dylan Wald and Noah Martzall) alternated with eight dancers from PNB’s corps de ballet who leapt, boogied and even performed a creditable Worm. Melisa Guilliams, in a pair of polka-dotted pants, launched herself into a series of grand jetés, and all of the men danced with unending energy.
ZigZag was a highly popular way to end the evening; tons of fun and a fitting opportunity for the younger PNB dancers to strut their stuff, particularly when we consider that veteran company members Elizabeth Murphy, Lucien Postlewaite and Ryan Cardea will bid farewell to their performance careers at the special Season Encore performance on Sunday, June 7. Young corps members like Noah Martzall, Larry Lancaster, Luca Anaya and Joh Morrill have the opportunity and the potential to seize the stage for themselves.
Choreographer Lang told the opening night audience that she’s found a home at PNB; her long tenure in Seattle has allowed her to get to know the dancers and to work with them to create more resonant ballets. This ALL LANG season-ending program gives us a sample of what’s in store.
As I write this, I think about what The Calling promised us more than a decade ago. Lang’s next big PNB commission debuts this summer at Ballet Sun Valley then will open next season in Seattle. While I know many people revere ballet’s long choreographic history and yearn to see both more traditional story ballets and more works by George Balanchine, I confess that my heart beats faster when I get to peek into the art form’s future.
You can catch part of that future at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s ALL LANG through 1 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at McCaw Hall.