PNB dancers work on building "One Flat Thing"

At Pacific Northwest Ballet this week, they're dancing on the tables.

The company is rehearsing for "Director's Choice," an evening of four contemporary ballets opening Thursday. And those tables — 20 of them — are part of William Forsythe's "One Flat Thing, reproduced." In a rehearsal studio, 14 dancers lightly skim over, under and around the tables; pound on them in a percussive thump; partner with each other briefly then split apart again. Relatively early in the rehearsal process, the scene looks like semi-organized chaos. Some dancers consult laptop computers to watch video of the dance; others consult handwritten notes tucked into their clothing.

Stagers Ayman Harper, Jill Johnson and Richard Siegal, all veterans of Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt, move easily within groups of dancers, working one-on-one with the PNB cast. Each role is unique, and each dancer must take individual responsibility for shaping it. It is, in Forsythe's words (remembered by Siegal), "an orchestra composed of conductors."

Outside of the rehearsal room, the stagers remembered the process of creating the dance, which was premiered by Ballet Frankfurt in 2000. "It was a very evolutionary process, and it developed hugely over the years that we performed it," said Siegal, who was among the original cast.

"Something I found really engaging about the process is that not only are you a part of the dance, but you're also part of the decision-making," said Harper. "A lot of times choreography will be somewhat dictated by music ... here is a certain count or musicality that's going to be dictating when you do it. This is totally interdependent on the other dancers; there's no dictation. It's a responsibility that a lot of dancers don't get to have."

"One Flat Thing, reproduced" has never been danced by an American company. While PNB has some experience with Forsythe's hard-edged, contemporary movement (his "Artifact II" and "In the middle, somewhat elevated" have been in the company's repertoire for some years), "One Flat Thing" is a different kind of movement.

"It's even different from Bill's other dances, though it still comes from classical ballet somehow," said Johnson. "Trios, with tables, taking so many visual cues from other dancers, too, just the inner mechanism."

Siegal said that he was initially concerned about whether PNB would be sufficiently versed in Forsythe's style to handle the work — concerns that proved to be fleeting.

"One of the things I was observing yesterday," he said, "was that the athleticism of the work seems to be very fitting for an American sensibility. The dancers here, they just seem to implicitly understand the kind of attack this movement needs, and the cooperative attention that you need to give to the other people for it to function."

"One Flat Thing, reproduced" will make its PNB debut Thursday. Sharing the bill will be Edwaard Liang's "Für Alina" and Ulysses Dove's "Vespers" (also PNB premieres) and Paul Gibson's "Sense of Doubt."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com