Leaping from Coast to Coast
It was good to receive word that former New York City Ballet corpsman William Lin-Yee has joined Pacific Northwest Ballet. Read the press release here. Will joins other City Ballet luminaries who have headed out West, heeding the call of Peter Boal: Carla Korbes, Miranda Weese, Seth Orza and Sarah Ricard Orza.
Will made a fine impression at NYCB with his tall and distinctive presence and was admired by the fan base for his blossoming partnership with Kaitlyn Gilliland. He scored an emphatic success in Richard Tanner's SONATAS & INTERLUDES dancing with Sara Mearns. I wrote about their performance on Ballet Talk:
"For the last several seasons, SONATAS & INTERLUDES has been a vehicle for Jock Soto, dancing with either Weese or Kowroski. I wondered how the ballet would look with other dancers, and I must say it looks refreshingly "new". I imagine Mr. Tanner taught the ballet to Sara Mearns & William Lin-Yee directly; maybe he made some modifications. The piece seemed lighter & more multi-faceted. Jock, in the past few revivals, was quite earthy and almost stolid. William showed some very defined footwork that I don't recall from Jock's interpretation, as well as a spacious feeling in the broader passages. Both he and Sara maintained the aloof facial expressions the piece calls for. Sara displayed great control & line, and they brought off the partnering with assured coolness. Really impressive job from these two charismatic young dancers."
The East Coast's loss is the West Coast's gain. Congratulatons, Will!
Eeeeek! I hope we don't lose to many more City Ballet-ers to PNB! We want to keep them here with us in NYC!!!
Posted by: Laura | April 02, 2008 at 05:21 PM
Actually, Will had already left NYCB last summer so PNB didn't really 'steal'him from us.
Posted by: Philip | April 02, 2008 at 08:09 PM
Yes I suppose that is true....
Posted by: Laura | April 02, 2008 at 08:10 PM
Road Trip?!??!?
Anyone?!?!?!?
Good for Will, I've missed his presence on the stage at the State Theatre and he will be a fabulous addition to the PNB roster.
Posted by: Sarah | April 02, 2008 at 08:33 PM
Bravo! Someone's going to have a great partner. Too bad not Kaitlyn Gilliland...by the way, isn't it about time for Lincoln Center's summer festival to offer a week of PNB? San Francisco Ballet sold well, so "NYCB West" (of course it is more than that) would be a lock! Is there any way to put an appropriate bug in an appropriate ear?
Al
Posted by: Al | April 02, 2008 at 10:32 PM
PNB will be on our Coast in June at the Kennedy Center dancing Nacho Duarto's JARDI TANCAT as part of the Ballet Across America series (June 10-15). And they will be at Vail in late July.
William Lin-Yee is I believe scheduled to join PNB in August; in the meantime I think there will be an opportunity to see him dancing in NYC before he leaves and I am trying to get more information about that.
Posted by: Philip | April 03, 2008 at 09:19 AM