Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer BatkhurelBold in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments.
Photos Angela Sterling.
Pacific Northwest Ballet pays tribute to the greatest choreographer of the 20th century and its own artistic heritage with All Balanchine, an homage to the man who revolutionized an art form in ways that have changed it forever. The three works on this season’s All Balanchine program—Serenade, Square Dance, and The Four Temperaments—exemplify the incredible range of George Balanchine’s work.
The line-up for ALL BALANCHINE will include:
Serenade 35 minutes
Music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
Originally choreographed in 1934 for his students at the newly-founded School of American Ballet, Serenade is a milestone in the history of dance as the first original ballet Balanchine created in America. Originating as a lesson in stage technique, Balanchine worked unexpected rehearsal events into the choreography. When one student fell, he incorporated it. Another day, a student arrived late, and this too became part of the ballet. The ballet is performed by 26 dancers in blue costumes in front of a blue background. An ideal manifestation of Tchaikovsky’s soaring score, its transcendent purity endures and renews itself as a primary testament to the choreographer’s genius.
Square Dance 25 minutes
Music: Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli
Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
Square Dance is a buoyant and intricate work that combines classical ballet with the patterns of 17th-century court dance, and American folk dance. In the original 1957 production, the musicians were on stage and a square dance caller was brought in to call out the steps. Balanchine revived Square Dance in 1976, dispensing with the caller, putting the orchestra in the pit, and adding a celebrated solo for the principal male dancer.
The Four Temperaments 33 minutes
Music: Paul Hindemith
Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust
The Four Temperaments, a quintessential “black and white” Balanchine ballet, is an early experiment in spare abstraction based on the medieval belief that human beings are made up of four different humors that determine a person’s temperament. In a series of plotless variations executed by dancers in practice clothes on a bare stage, Balanchine fused classical steps with a lean and angular style, and proclaimed a new era in ballet with some of the most uniquely evocative images ever created. The Four Temperamentswas recognized immediately as a work without precedent in choreographic history. It is Balanchine’s first—and phenomenally powerful—announcement of the spare, dislocated classicism that he would employ throughout his career in works such as Agon, Episodes, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto and that would have such a profound influence on the emerging American style.
All Balanchine runs April 15-25 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Tickets start at $25 and may be purchased online at PNB.org.
$15 Tickets For Ages 25 & Under: One ticket for $15 and two for $25 for patrons 25 years and younger at all Thursday and Friday evening performances! To purchase tickets, contact the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424 or visit 301 Mercer Street. This offer is good only for the 7:30 pm performances on April 15, 16, 22 and 23. Each attendee must present valid I.D. upon ticket retrieval.
