Choreography isn’t usually a team sport. While it\u2019s not terribly unusual for a Pacific Northwest Ballet company member to debut a new choreographic work on the company\u2019s mainstage, there is something very different about \u201cAfterTime,\u201d a new ballet making its world premiere in the company\u2019s November repertory program. It\u2019s created by not one but two PNB dancer\/choreographers \u2014 soloists Christopher D\u2019Ariano and Amanda Morgan \u2014 in a rare example of team choreography.<\/p>\n
Morgan, in an interview after rehearsal in late October, suggested the reason choreographic duos are rare is because \u201cit takes extra time and communication and brainstorming and collaboration. You want to feel like both your voices are in it.\u201d She described her collaboration with D\u2019Ariano as \u201ca feat in itself. It\u2019s teaching us a lot \u2014 how to compromise, how to prepare, how to step back at different points and allow the work to show you what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike many contemporary ballets, \u201cAfterTime\u201d has a narrative: In a post-apocalyptic future, a pair of protagonists discover a technological system which they switch on. In the rehearsal room, the ballet was beginning to take shape: Lines of dancers, performing sharp, angular movements, formed the system\u2019s \u201cgrid,\u201d while the protagonists\u2019 dance style was more flowing and grounded. It was, at this stage, just bits and pieces being rehearsed, with Morgan and D\u2019Ariano moving between groups of dancers, frequently pausing to confer with each other and with Morgan\u2019s detailed handwritten notebook. (She is, as she noted in the interview, \u201cvery analog.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t a narrative, I think the process would be much different,\u201d D\u2019Ariano said. Having a story to follow, he said, meant that he and Morgan have the same trajectory, which helps keep them on the same page. \u201cWe know what the end goal is \u2026 We know where the music is going, it\u2019s all built out. As long as we follow that and then tie it in with feeling and narrative and characters, it gets where it needs to be.\u201d Being working dancers meant they could first create some of the choreography on each other, figuring it out by doing it; other parts were created in rehearsal with the cast.<\/p>\n
Morgan and D\u2019Ariano, who have been with PNB since 2016 and 2017, respectively, are longtime friends and experienced choreographers. Both have created work separately for multiple arts organizations around Seattle (including The Seattle Project<\/a>, for which Morgan is the founding artistic director) and PNB\u2019s NEXT STEP program, an annual choreographic workshop in which PNB company members create new work to be performed by Professional Division students.<\/p>\n Morgan and D\u2019Ariano\u2019s first choreographic collaboration was for NEXT STEP in 2024, a work in suits and sneakers called \u201cDreamCity.\u201d PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal saw that ballet, and \u201cwas really struck how I could identify which parts Amanda had created and which parts Christopher had created,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw those two contributions melding together quite successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n Boal acknowledged that it\u2019s \u201creally rare\u201d for two people to successfully choreograph together, remembering from early in his own dance career an \u201cendless\u201d collaboration between Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp called “Brahms\/Handel” that was, he said diplomatically, \u201ca difficult process.\u201d Nonetheless, he was intrigued by the idea, and asked Morgan and D\u2019Ariano to make a new work together for the company mainstage this season. \u201cI thought these two would complement each other and enhance each other in a way that was worth exploring,\u201d he said. He wanted to give them the opportunity to take the next step in their dancemaking careers at the company.<\/p>\n Headlines, puzzles and death notices from the Valley delivered to your inbox 7 a.m. daily.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cA choreographer is an artist without a canvas,\u201d Boal said. \u201cThey can\u2019t grow and develop unless they\u2019re given the opportunity to develop an entire work. Studios are fine, but stages are better.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been an unusually busy time for Morgan and D\u2019Ariano. Though Morgan has the luxury of not performing in the November repertory, she\u2019s just debuted her latest work, \u201cArrivals<\/a>,\u201d with The Seattle Project at King Street Station in late October. D\u2019Ariano will perform in the other two ballets in the repertory, Dani Rowe\u2019s \u201cThe Window\u201d and Twyla Tharp\u2019s \u201cIn the Upper Room,\u201d so he\u2019s in and out of multiple PNB studios, adding more complexity to the company\u2019s already-complicated rehearsal schedules.<\/p>\n