By GUILHEREME MELETTI YAZBEK
There is something inherently unstable about a mixed repertory program. Unlike a full-length work, which unfolds through a sustained aesthetic trajectory—developing its own internal logic and language—a program composed of multiple choreographies often resists cohesion, offering instead a succession of distinct worlds. Watching Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Spring Mix, presented at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, I found myself moving between these worlds while also wondering what, if anything, held them together. The answer, perhaps, lies in the very idea of spring. Not simply as a season of renewal, growth, and blossoming, but as a force of excess—an eruption of energy that is at once generative and overwhelming. If the program does not fully cohere as a unified work, it nevertheless resonates as a field of intensities, where different aesthetic impulses emerge and coexist under the expansive, and at times unruly, sign of spring.
Opening the program, Mark Godden’s Angels in the Architecture begins in silence—an unexpectedly potent choice that immediately sharpens the audience’s attention to the dancers’ presence and to the subtle architecture of movement unfolding on stage. As Aaron Copland’s orchestral score gradually enters, the choreography establishes a distinct stage environment grounded in rhythm, repetition, and a sense of communal order. What struck me most was a recurring lexicon of arm movements that seemed to operate according to its own internal logic, organizing the dancers in space and giving the piece continuity.
There is a strong sense of domesticity at play—one constructed through both imagery and choreographic structure. The straw brooms, initially standing upright in a striking opening image, later become extensions of the dancers’ bodies, organizing the space and extending the movement beyond the body itself. This is echoed in the frequent partnering, with multiple portés in which women are lifted, supported, and carefully carried by male dancers, as well as in a series of beautifully executed jumps that bring lightness and suspension to the stage. Together, these elements create a world that feels cooperative and sustained through repetition. What emerges is a choreography that privileges continuity over rupture. Its internal language remains consistent throughout, not as a limitation but as a commitment to a particular state—one rooted in collectivity and order. The result is a work that unfolds less through transformation than through persistence.
Here, the shift into the Swan Lake White Swan pas de deux introduces a markedly different register—one grounded in classical form, lyricism, and romantic intimacy. The stage is washed in cool blue light, and the atmosphere immediately turns toward a more introspective, almost suspended emotional space. Performed by Hannah Carter and Lucius Kirst, the duet places a clear emphasis on line and extension: sustained arabesques and deep cambrés derrière—particularly those moments in which the ballerina inclines so far backward that she seems to fall, only to be caught at the last instant by her partner—create images of remarkable beauty, anchored both in risk and control. The male dancer’s role, as is typical in this section, is largely one of support and framing, allowing the ballerina’s movement to unfold with continuity and fluidity.
It is, undeniably, a beautiful insertion. And yet, within the context of the evening, the pas de deux feels somewhat untethered. Unlike the other works, which propose distinct choreographic worlds or conceptual frameworks, this excerpt operates as a fragment of a larger, only partially present narrative. Its inclusion seems to respond less to the program’s internal logic and more to an expectation—an offering of the classical canon to an audience seeking its familiarity and refinement. What remains is a moment of elegance and technical clarity, even as it sits slightly apart from the broader aesthetic conversation of the evening.
If the program finds its most cohesive and compelling expression, it is in Monger. Created in 2008 and now widely performed, the work arrives with its fully developed choreographic language. From the outset, it establishes a scenario: the sound of a bell, the suggestion of labor, a community gathered on stage in clothing that evokes both everyday life and work, with aprons functioning as a recurring and significant visual marker. There is also a subtle sense of temporal displacement. The shifting musical landscape unfolds as a kind of collage, blending references that at times evoke early twentieth-century popular forms—particularly through hints of swing and jazz—with other musical traditions, creating a world that feels suspended between historical moments rather than anchored in any one of them. What unfolds is not only a choreography, but a structured social space. The presence of Ms. Margaret—never seen, but repeatedly invoked through spoken text—introduces a clear hierarchy, one that organizes the performers’ relationships and gradually exposes the tensions embedded within this collective.
Here, movement and voice operate inseparably. Gestures are punctuated by vocal exclamations—sharp, unison bursts of sound that cut through the choreography, giving it a driving urgency. The dancers’ physicality is deeply theatrical: facial expressions, direct address, and a highly articulated gestural language push the work toward dance theatre, without diminishing the force of the movement itself. This approach resonates with Barak Marshall’s background as a former house choreographer with the Batsheva Dance Company, where gesture, voice, and collective presence are tightly interwoven. At the same time, the choreography builds through repetition and control, intensifying gradually rather than relying on display.
This structure begins to fracture from within. Moments of resistance emerge—most strikingly in a section in which a group of women asserts itself against the surrounding male presence, shifting the dynamics on stage through shared timing and physical insistence. This tension builds toward the final sequence, where the workers no longer respond to the calls of authority and instead turn toward one another, dancing in opposition to the figure that had previously governed them. What takes shape is less a definitive revolution than a powerful gesture of refusal—one that reorients the collective, even if it does not fully dismantle the structures it resists.
At the same time, the work complicates its own social framework through gestures that unsettle fixed notions of gender and identity. In one particularly striking moment, two men sit side by side, opening a suitcase that reveals feminine attire—heels, garments—which they begin to share. What emerges is not simply a gesture of cross-dressing, but the construction of a virtual, composite figure: one body assembled across two performers. Half-dressed, half-performed, this figure moves in fragments, as if femininity itself were being built, negotiated, and momentarily inhabited between them. What emerges is a body that does not belong to either of them individually, but exists only in the space between the two. The scene derives much of its potency from this tension: while it appears to stage a playful negotiation between masculine and feminine codes, it simultaneously produces a distinctly homoerotic charge, as the audience remains fully aware that what is being constructed—and desired—is shared between two male bodies.
What remains, above all, is the force of the collective. Monger is not driven by individual virtuosity, but by the group—its tensions and its capacity to move together, even in moments of rupture. It is here that the program reaches its greatest clarity, not by smoothing out its differences, but by allowing them to exist within a shared, urgent, and deeply theatrical language.
Closing the program, Garrett Smith’s Meet You At Midnight—presented here in its world premiere—introduces a more overtly contemporary register, both in its movement vocabulary and visual design. The piece opens with a duet between two men—an effective shift that briefly expands the evening’s dramaturgical landscape—before unfolding into a series of duets, trios, and ensemble passages that emphasize speed, precision, and physical intensity. While moments of classical vocabulary appear—particularly in the use of pointe work—the overall language remains firmly rooted in a contemporary idiom, marked by sharp transitions and a continuous sense of propulsion, underscored by Philip Glass’ music.
This sense of momentum is reinforced by the lighting design (Michael Korsch), which departs from the warmer tonalities of the previous works in favor of a cooler palette. Rather than relying heavily on lateral light to sculpt volume, the design privileges backlight, producing silhouetted bodies and a flatter visual field that aligns with the work’s contemporary aesthetic. Costumes by Kristin McLain and Garrett Smith further activate the stage image: the interplay of blue and yellow—complementary colors—creates a visual tension in which each tone intensifies the other, while fringed elements amplify the dancers’ movement, extending it into the surrounding space.
And yet, as the piece unfolds, this sustained intensity begins to flatten experience. Movement and music tend to operate along the same energetic line, with few moments of contrast or suspension. The choreography accumulates force, but rarely redirects it, which at times gives the impression of a work driven more by effect than by necessity. Individual moments—solos, brief encounters, overt virtuosity—emerge and dissipate quickly, without anchoring themselves within a larger structural arc.
This is not to diminish the performers’ commitment or the clarity of execution, both of which remain consistently high. Rather, it is to note how the piece seems to privilege immediacy over modulation, maintaining a heightened state that leaves little room for variation. In the context of the evening, Meet You At Midnight extends the program’s range while also bringing into focus one of its central tensions: the difference between intensity and transformation.
If Spring Mix resists the cohesion of a single choreographic vision, it nevertheless reveals its own kind of logic. Rather than building toward unity, the program unfolds as a constellation of distinct approaches to movement and form—each operating according to its own internal rhythm. The idea of spring, invoked in the program’s framing, offers a useful lens here. Not only as a season of renewal, but as a moment of simultaneous emergence, of energies that do not necessarily resolve into harmony. Across the evening, this takes shape in shifting relations between structure and expansion, in moments that hold steady and others that fracture, and in a persistent emphasis on intensity that does not always lead to transformation. If the works do not fully converge, they nonetheless coexist within this shared field—one that is at times uneven, but also undeniably alive.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Spring Mix is at the August Wilson Cultural Center April 10 – 12,, 2026. Tickets at https://pbt.culturaldistrict.org/production/99175/spring-mix
Guilherme is a Brazilian theater practitioner and scholar, currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. www.guilhermeyazbek.com
Categories: Arts and Ideas
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