Before the Story: Concerto Vivaldi

Concerto Vivaldi
Northwest Dance Theatre
Portland Community College Sylvania, Portland, Oregon
Saturday, April 11, 2026 | 2pm

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Before Snow White began, Northwest Dance Theatre offered something quieter: Concerto Vivaldi, a contemporary ballet choreographed by Cameron Smith Purandare and staged and rehearsed by June Taylor-Dixon and Kim Schroeder.

Set to Vivaldi and performed with live accompaniment from the Metropolitan Youth Symphony’s Hillsboro Camerata, under the direction of Kevin A. Lefohn, it lasted only about fifteen minutes.

There was no scenery and no narrative to follow—only dancers moving against a pale blue backdrop.

The dancers entered in flowing pink costumes, creating an immediate sense of cohesion. One dancer wore grey instead. She did not dominate the stage, but the contrast made her feel distinct within the group. It was a small visual choice, though one that subtly shifted where my eye went.

The ballet unfolded across four concertos, each with its own character. In Concerto 2: Exploring, the stage belonged entirely to the women. Their movement softened into unison, with lines and curves forming and reforming across the stage. Without a story to guide the audience, the choreography itself became the focus: timing, spacing, and the way one dancer’s movement could continue into another’s.

Concerto 3: Engaging brought back more variation, while Concerto 4: Reflecting became the piece’s quiet center.

It began with two dancers moving closely together in mirror-like parallel. They seemed less to be dancing toward one another than sharing a single movement between them. Later, I noticed in the program that one was listed as Snow White and the other as an attendant of the Queen. Before either character appeared in the ballet that followed, this duet introduced Snow White through reflection rather than story.

For a moment, the larger stage seemed to disappear.

Then the other dancers entered. The expansion did not feel abrupt or staged as a reveal. Instead, the duet gradually opened into a collective shape, its earlier movement absorbed by the ensemble without losing its sense of intimacy. The choreography did not build toward spectacle. It simply came to a resolution.

By the time it ended, I felt as though the piece had quietly recalibrated the audience’s attention. It asked us to watch lines, spacing, repetition, and the small moments when dancers moved together—or deliberately did not. It prepared us not for a story exactly, but for the act of watching itself.

And then, only after that, the forest.