Seattle Center News
MODERN MASTERPIECES

Through March 24 Pacific Northwest Ballet at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall

March’s ideally balanced mixed-bill delivers three repertory giants and a world premiere. Peter Boal’s desire to curate new choreographic collections paved the way for works by Ulysses Dove and Twyla Tharp to enter Pacific Northwest Ballet’s repertory. In Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, Dove’s ode to love and loss, the pairing and parting of three couples is illuminated in still pools of white light. Aerobic-clad “stompers” and ankle-socked ballerinas convene under arena-rock haze for Tharp’s In the Upper Room, an exuberant full-court assault from the 80s. Concerto Barocco, George Balanchine’s testament to the mathematical beauty of Bach, achieves flawless form via Francia Russell, one of the first ballet masters chosen by Balanchine to stage his works. PNB’s own Paul Gibson (The Piano Dance) unveils a new pas de deux to Mozart for the Company, sensitively crafted to the dancers he knows best.