Review: Peninsula Ballet Theater presents Don Quixote, April 11 & 12, 2025, Woodside Performing Arts Center, Woodside CA
- Jen Norris
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Following the listed address for the Woodside Performing Arts Center, my GPS sends me to a gated mansion, but with persistence I find it on the high school campus of this affluent Northern California enclave. The venue is abuzz with the chatter of neighbors, a reminder of how much the arts enliven and enrich communities. My seatmate clutches a bouquet of roses wrapped in cellophane, a gift for a performer at the end of the night.
Peninsula Ballet Theatre (PBT) is presenting Don Quixote alongside three world premieres. They, and their parent company Peninsula Lively Arts, have extensive education programs whose students fill the corps ranks of annual classical and hip-hop Nutcracker casts. For this two-performance run, April 11 & 12, I am uncertain what to expect cast-wise. I am happy to report that a talented company of professional dancers delivers a gem of a program.
A spirited one-act adaptation of the beloved classic, Don Quixote, originally based on Miguel de Cervantes’s early 17th-Century novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha, is the centerpiece of the program. Set in a Spanish town square of old, Nina Amato’s staging (after Marius Petipa and a succession of others) focuses on the excitement leading up to, and celebrating the wedding of Kitri and Basilio. Don Quixote, the old gentleman whose delusional quests are the focus of the novel, is relegated here to the minor role of marriage officiant. This is all for the best, as Nina Amato’s staging is buoyant and dance-filled, providing ample room for each company member to shine. Atop the classical choreography, a Spanish flair is created with fans, tambourines, flouncy skirts, and arm positions drawn from Flamenco.
The star of the show is Kelley Hashemi, who dazzles as Kitri. Full of passion and a dash of sass, Hashemi dances with speed, precision, and joy. Her skill, confidence, and comportment make her a pleasure to watch. She shows off intricate footwork, while also allowing herself the luxury of a coy smile as she taps her fan on the ground. With flare, she triumphantly offers a series of Plisetskaya jumps, in which her back leg kicks high enough to touch her head. Her technique and athleticism are laudable. Amazingly, ballet isn’t Hashemi only vocation, by day she works as an aeronautical engineer for NASA.
In a slinky long black and red satin Flamenco dress, Alyssa-Marie Muña makes a striking impression. Hand on hip, commanding the stage, she arches gracefully back so deeply that she can look at those behind her.
Phoenix Wilkins cuts an elegant figure as the matador who catches the eye of Astrid Arvelo, whose sultry and slower paced solo en pointe showcases her lovely lines and fine control.
An excellent actor and strong character dancer, Jim Ballard is delightful as Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s squire. Blindfolded by the bridesmaids after being caught trying to steal a huge round of cheese from the wedding table, dizzily he pursues his prize in a silly game of keep-away. Having prevailed, cheese-in-hand, he accents his success with several impressively high split-jumps.
Shirley Cheng as Amour, the apparition of the love from the old knight’s dreams, ethereally glides across the stage on her toes in the prelude and conclusion of the ballet.
Don Quixote is preceded by three world-premiere ballets. The courtly frolic Tis But A Jest!, choreographed by Naomi Sailors is performed to French Romantic composer Léo Delibes’s bright and bounding composition, “Le roi s’amuse” (the king amuses himself).
Sailors’s Tis But A Jest! makes excellent use of her fellow PBT company members’ talents, while also being genuinely enjoyable and well-made. It features the antics of Jim Ballard, in the Sancho-Panza-adjacent comic role of The Jester. Balletic hijinks ensue when The Jester is caught in a contest of one-upmanship to impress the king by a quartet of court ladies. Sailor’s choreography displays great musicality as the fleet footed ladies, performing in ballet slippers, playfully hop and skip, embellishing their vertical jumps with little flutter kicks.
The women each have a specialty. With longing arms, and her sorrowful expressions, Astrid Arvelo well-represents her dramatic side, while also making clear she will tolerate no pity from others for her distress. Dancing poems of love and affection to her lady friends, Tracy Fuller, soon finds herself pushing away The Jester’s unwanted kisses. With the gestures of a songbird, and the highest of kicks, Alyssa Maria Muña brings music to the court before being misplaced, as Kelly Hashimi, representing the comic artforms, mischievously knocks her friend out of the way to take centerstage. I look forward to seeing what other gems might be forthcoming from emerging dancemaker Sailors.
The escalating urgency of contemporary Italian composer and pianist Ezio Bosso’s soul-stirring “Rain, in your black eyes,” marvelously supports the themes of personal transformation and transcendence of In This Light, which was created by PBT Artistic Director Greg Amato for dancer and company manager Chloé Watson on the occasion of her retirement.
Watson soars with the help of her partner Jacob DalPorto who sweeps her up onto his shoulders so she may see what the future may hold. A deep trust pervades this well-matched couple as they dance together, allowing Watson to strike confident balances throughout.
An ensemble of seven willowy women, in ankle-length diaphanous gowns, weave through and around the couple. Perhaps they are the spirits of ballerinas past and present? The piece begins and ends with the tableau of a tree or a cross. Watson stands with DalPorto nested behind her, his extended arms the tree limbs upon which the vines of her arms rest. Their necks are intertwined, cheeks touching, creating a tender moment of blossoming as the movement begins and offering a place of quiet closure as the lights fade.
London-based choreographer Marika Brussel’s Slant of the Earth reimagines the Old Testament story of Abraham, his wife Sarah, and Sarah’s devoted servant Hagar, whom Sarah offers to Abraham to bear him a child, when she has not yet been able to do so. The ballet also includes an ensemble of two men and four women whom I interpret as representing fate. They point the way of destiny and swirl purposefully at moments of heightened emotion.
Abraham is portrayed with palpable pathos by PBT guest artist Calvin Thomas, continually seeking God’s word. Reaching beseechingly or kneeling with head tilted heavenward, his suffering and uncertainly are manifest in the waves that travel down his torso. Rising onto a toe, leg extended behind her in arabesque; while pressing her palms resolutely downward, Chloé Watson’s Sarah is melancholy but determined to give her husband the children he so desires. Hagar, danced with constrained sorrow by Vinnie Jones, loves her mistress and their side-by-side unison dance as the decision is made to send her to Abraham, is heartrending.
In the bible, Sarah gives birth to a child of Abraham’s many years after Hagar does so. This leads to the eventual banishment of and Hagar and Ishmael, the child she birthed with Abraham. The ballet ends with Hagar walking toward the God corner, and Sarah looking like she might follow her. While the ballet is highly emotive, the full narrative remained unclear to me. Does Hagar give birth? Does Sarah also bear a child? Is Hagar leaving willingly or is she banished?
I am impressed by the PBT artists’ commitment. While many, if not all, have full-time jobs beyond the dance studio, they have devoted themselves to ballet. It is only through countless hours of training and rehearsal that an evening of diverse choreographic voices, with more than 2 hours of dancing, can be presented with such aplomb.
Review by Jen Norris, published April 14, 2025