PNB Don Quixote

before the ballet

Friday I had the chance to go to opening night of Don Quixote at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) with my friend Jamie (She had an extra ticket, yay!). The costuming and sets were amazing and I loved both Tom Skerritt, as Don Quixote, and Allen Galli, as Sancho Panza. The dancing was quite good, though I must admit I am not a big fan of "gratuitous dancing" which tends to be predominate in a lot of classical story ballets. Basically, those parts where everyone stands around and watches the principle dancers show of how many fouette turns they can do or high they can jump, etc. (Granted these tend to be big crowd pleasers and bring in the money for the ballet company so they can put on the more modern ballets that I prefer.) The biggest weakness was Carla Korbes as Kitri, admittedly a hard dancing role and this was her first time dancing it. My favorite part was Act 2, probably because I liked the dream sequences with cupid and also Don Quixote's battle with the very Hieronymus Bosch inspired demons. I wish they had been on for longer! Oh and the strange cactus people! (note the trailer for the ballet is not of the PNB dancers, though the choreography and sets are the same, I think the clip is from the Dutch National Ballet)

love conquers all

Another fun part of going to the ballet is the excuse to dress up. The dress is a 1950's wiggle dress and I've been waiting for a good excuse to wear it. I only had 1/2 an hour to get ready after work (including quick shower) so my make-up consisted of red lips and I didn't have time to iron (linen is very wrinkle prone!) I don't think the shoes really went with the outfit, and the fact that the back strap would not stay up with the tights on made walking more of a challenge than I cared for. Need some sky-high silver heels. We tried to take some photos with Jamie's iphone at the ballet, but they turned out rather bad so not posting them! Oh yeah and Godzilla stayed home, my strange cat thinks he's her friend so he tends to hang by the heater.





Below is Natalia Osipova dancing as Kitri, she's absolutely amazing! (maybe unfair to compare Carla to her)