Giselle at the Pacific Northwest Ballet /  by Kevin Swantek

This last Thursday I received a last minute invitation to see a preview of the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of Giselle at McCaw Hall. My only other ballet experience was watching the contemporary choreography of Director's Choice back in March. Normally I wouldn't consider ballet to be my thing, but in both cases I was with good company, so I was happy to attend.

Giselle is what my friend called "story ballet", so it's best described as watching a play told through dance. The Director's Choice show was very different. There were 4 different pieces (TAKE FIVE...More or Less, State of Darkness, Kiss and World PremiereMemory Glow by Alejandro Cerrudo), each of which came across as being far more physically demanding than Giselle, but also I have to keep in mind that all the dancers in Giselle were on stage dancing for a much longer duration than the dancers in the Director's Choice show. Giselle is a two hour show, with many of the dancers on stage for much of the ballet. In Director's Choice the dancers danced for 20 - 30 minutes for each of the choreographed pieces, and each piece had a different cast of dancers, so they could put all of their energy into those 20 - 30 minutes.

The story of Giselle: The ballet is about a peasant girl named Giselle who dies of a broken heart after discovering her lover is betrothed to another. The Wilis, a group of supernatural women who dance men to death, summon Giselle from her grave. They target her lover for death, but Giselle's love frees him from their grasp. (Wikipedia)

Having limited experience with ballet, I will say that I'm most impressed with contemporary choreography. Comparatively, "story ballet" feels a little like the dancers are kind of walking through the story on stage. That's not to take anything away from the dancers in Giselle. The technical demands of this ballet are apparent, it's just that the pacing of the dance was much different than my only other comparative experience.

The things to note about this production of Giselle are the sets, and the costumes. The set piece in the first act takes place in a small village down from a distant castle. The second act set piece takes place in a dark wilderness cemetery. In both acts the set pieces were created from a series of simple two dimensional cutouts for trees, but were layered in a way that gave the stage floor great depth. Having personal experience being on the McCaw Hall stage for the Seattle Opera as a supernumerary actor, I can tell you that this stage is ginormous, and so the scale of these productions are always impressive. This production was no different. The trees and the lighting in both acts were great. I don't want to spoil the staging of the end of the ballet, but how they use Giselle's headstone is quite beautiful.

The costumes in the first act weren't terribly interesting, but the Willis' in the cemetery in the second act are something else. If I'm remembering what my friend told me, their costumes were made of chiffon, and floated beautifully as they danced. 

On the whole, I don't think that Giselle was my kind of thing, but I appreciated the opportunity to see this ballet. Seattle is a great arts city, and I'm always impressed by the level of quality that comes out of Seattle, even if the thing I'm watching isn't my bag.

 

A growing city with shrinking transit service /  by Kevin Swantek

Last week the Seattle Times published an article identifying Seattle as the fastest growing big city. Seattle added nearly 18,000 new residents (a 2.8% growth from the year before) bringing Seattle's total population up to about 652,000. As the Seattle population grows, so do the cuts to the Seattle Metro transit seem all the more terrible for the city.

Seattle Times article: "Census: Seattle is the fastest-growing big city in the U.S."

The Pending 17% Services Cut to Seattle Metro /  by Kevin Swantek

The Seattle Metro (Seattle's transit system) faces a 17% cut in service. A proposed measure to stem the cuts was mailed out in April, asking Seattle voters to raise car tabs to $60, and add a tenth of a cent to the sales tax (expiring after 10 years). The measure was rejected by 55%, leaving Seattle Metro little other choice but to cut service, or find another solution. To date the city is trying to find new solutions to solve this deficit.

According to Forbes online Seattle is one the 20 fastest growing cities in the US, and according to a relatively recent study, also has Seattle listed as the 4th worst traffic in the nation. So as Seattle continues to grow, and if transit service continues to be cut, so to will the traffic problems likely worsen.

What does this mean for the working class poor, and lower middle class? To my mind, it means getting priced out of the city, and pushed further away (both geographically and monetarily) from the cultural opportunities that Seattle has to offer. With rent continuing to rise (as brand new apartment buildings demand higher rent, and surrounding rentals adjusting to remain competitive), the problem of keeping Seattle a thriving cultural hub for all will become all the more difficult.

What happens when families are forced to move out of the city, towards cheaper rent, but they can't afford the price of gas to commute into Seattle daily? What good is a city's transit service if its unable to meet the needs of its riders? With reduced transit service, how much longer will daily commutes become? And, what happens when that valuable time is taken away from families?

If I had one argument to make, it would be that every city should be obligated to provide its citizens' with the resources and infrastructure needed to create a standard for "quality of life" that isn't merely just barely surviving. What cultural value is there in a city where only the wealthiest can afford to live?