Broadway musicals ring ballet's cash register bells

March 21, 7:49 AMSeattle Theater ExaminerRosemary Jones

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PNB ballerinas show off their singing in "America." Photo copyright Angela Sterling.

In a fairly dismal season for ticket sales, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s homage to the Broadway musical turned into a winner for the company. 

Artistic director Peter Boal announced late on Friday that single ticket sales for the  “Broadway Festival” broke all previous records for a mixed repertory program (i.e. a program with many short dance pieces, rather than a story ballet like “Swan Lake”).

No wonder, this light-hearted tribute to the influence of ballet on American musicals, and vice versa, contains all the best parts of a great musical:  gorgeous music, even more beautiful dancers, and no need to worry about those dull speaking moments between numbers.

The father of the New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, rolled off the boat from Russia with ambitions to transplant his birth country’s dance traditions on new soil, but he also fell in love with the Great White Way of his adopted city.

Balanchine choreographed four Rodgers and Hart musicals, starting with On Your Toes in 1936.  And he got the first “choreography” credit recorded on Broadway for that 1936 job.  

Thirty years later, he adapted his On Your Toes ballet sequence into the one-act standalone piece Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.
Anyone who thinks Balanchine is all about cool, controlled and cerebral dance hasn’t chuckled their way through this deliberately silly story-within-the-story.

Principal dancers Jeffrey Stanton and Jonathan Porretta hoofed it up (and hammed more than a little) as an American tapper and his jealous Russian ballet rival, with able help from the lovely soloist Lesley Rausch as the Striptease Girl. PNB supporter Dan Baty did his own star turn on opening night acting as the gangster waiting in the box for the right moment to shoot down Stanton’s character.

The second act featured two short pieces inspired by the musicals. In his Carousel (A Dance) , choreographer Christopher Wheeldon transforms the dancers into a slowly revolving carousel of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s bittersweet musical, forever uniting and separating the lovers.

Susan Stroman’s Take Five…More or Less  made its world premiere last year at PNB.  The choreographer of  “Contact” created a sweet confection devoted to the eternal impossibility of dancers ever standing still or “taking five” minutes to chill.

Principal dancer Kaori Nakamura shone as Yellow (the characters take their name from their dress colors) while Rausch got to show off her long, long lines for the second time of the night as Purple.

The evening ended with the most famous mix of Broadway and ballet:  West Side Story Suite. (Review continues after video)

In 1995, Jerome Robbins created the “Suite” based on his groundbreaking choreography for the premiere of “West Side Story.”  The “Suite” contains all the most famous tunes and ends on a happy note before the death of Romeo-substitute Tony.

Ballet dancers, unlike Broadway dancers, are usually silent but several company members lent their voices to “America” and “Cool.”

Ably assisting from the pit was local opera talent Wesley Rogers for a poignant “Something’s Coming” danced on stage with delicate precision in sneakers by principal dancer Lucien Postlewaite.  

5th Avenue veterans Anne Eisendrath, Jeannette D’Armand, Candice Donehoo, and Billie Wildrick could also be heard in “West Side Story Suite” as well as performing a medley of Broadway tunes in the lobby during the first intermission.

Other highlights of the “West Side Suite” included Seth Orza as a menacing Riff, Karel Cruz as equally tough rival Bernardo, Carla Korbes as Anita, and Sarah Ricard Orza as Maria.

However, this piece truly belonged to the entire company, with all the athletic Jets and Sharks and their graceful girls creating a fitting tribute to ballet and Broadway.