Stravinsky125 @ PNB
Through June 10 // McCaw Hall // Tickets $18-$145

The big thing on PNB's Stravinsky-celebrating program is State of Darkness, a 34-minute solo choreographed by Molissa Fenley. We saw Jonathan Porretta, but the casts change. The music is Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and in contrast to the "pagan sacrifice" orchestral theatrics, Fenley emphasizes solitary ritual and the limits of human endurance. A movement sequence (nothing showy, nothing too aerial) is presented, the lighting changes, the sequence repeats, Porretta visibly drips with sweat, the sequence comes around again and again, and you start rooting for him like a gymnast at the Olympics but without the judges and crowd and you realize that one salute must be it, must be how it ends, when it ends.

"Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Wow. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I've never seen anything like that. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. It's a masterpiece. Oh. Oh Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I've never seen anything like that. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh," exclaimed the two sauced old buzzards sitting behind us, springing to their feet and clapping with gusto. Their running commentary was irritating the bejesus out of us, but in this case they were right and it just goes to show that Stravinsky can reach even stewed old buzzards. Powerful magic the old man had.

The buzzards were not as fond of the two Balanchine pieces, Rubies and Symphony in Three Movements, though Kiyon Gaines' "Gravity, what gravity?" jumps provoked a series of grudging Ohs and Wows. Rubies is a bit like Balanchine poking fun at Gene Kelly but secretly hoping that something will catch fire -- it's jazzy, hip-cocked, Broadway-hoofing and classical ballet, and Kaori Nakamura and Olivier Wevers actually pulled it off with exactly the panache required. The Symphony is a marvel. There's some soaring stuff for the three duos (and some "I'm in ur ballet surprizin u with my jazzle dazzle"), but we counted...26!...other dancers onstage -- as if Ziegfeld had gotten classical ballet religion -- the corps doing these insanely tricky moving formations that resolved in perfect unisons. The audience burst into applause after one of these feats, but it was just because a principal was leaving the stage. (In general, principals could come on, smoke a cigarette, and they would get big claps. Save some esprit for the corps, people. And maybe save it for the end while you're at it.)

Jerome Robbins' Circus Polka would warm the heart of anyone who's wanted to crack a whip over the heads of a group of 30-or-so moppets (from the Ballet's school), but mainly it inspired in us a desire to see the original, supposed to be performed by elephants in the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Elephants! Man, 1942 was a great year.

Photo: Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Jonathan Porretta in Molissa Fenley’s “State of Darkness” © Angela Sterling