You already know how this story goes.There’s a sense of anticipation when the lights in the theater go down. A hush comes over the audience and the orchestra tunes their instruments. The conductor walks out and we hear the first few notes of Tchaikovsky’s wonderful score. The curtain goes up and the magic begins…
Forty-two year old Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite is in Seattle this week. Her own company, Kidd Pivot, is already a favorite of On the Boards audiences. But, this time around, she’s in town to set her ballet Emergence on PNB dancers. Originally created for The National Ballet of Canada, this work has […]
After five years, corps de ballet dancer Ezra Thomson says he feels right at home here in the Pacific Northwest. And, apparently, so does the rest of the Thomson family. Originally from San Bernadino, California, Ezra moved to Seattle as a Professional Division student in Pacific Northwest Ballet School in 2009 and joined […]
In April of 2011, I had the pleasure of traveling to Den Hague in the Netherlands to meet with one of the greatest choreographers of our time, Jiri Kylian. Jiri doesn’t travel far from home, so I went to him. I was there to […]
In 2009, Lindsi Dec saw her first work by choreographer Crystal Pite, Lost Action, at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. But she recently admitted that she didn’t actually buy a ticket. Here’s what happened…
PNB sent a group of dancers to the festival to perform a program of three works […]
“Even the most optimistic champions of self-organization feel a little wary about the lack of control in such a process. But understanding emergence has always been about giving up control, letting the system govern itself as much as possible, letting it learn from the footprints.”
Steven Johnson
“The […]
On Friday, October 11 three PNB Company dancers spent several hours on board a Washington State Ferry. Why, you ask? They were shooting a promotional video for Visit Seattle, a marketing campaign aimed at promoting tourism to our fair city. The TV spot features these gifted classical artists against the stunning natural […]
A ballet dancer is often thought of as the antithesis of a football player. Comparing these two professions is intriguing, as people commonly view them as completely different from one another. Yet, at the heart, they are quite similar. After sitting down to chat with Pacific Northwest Ballet corps dancer Leah Merchant and […]
Twyla Tharp is no ordinary person. One look at her bio and you get that. It’s not just the mountains of awards, medals, prizes, fellowships, and honorary degrees, or the three books, six films, twelve television specials, four Broadway shows, two figure skating routines, […]
The epicenter of Twyla Tharp’s newest creation, Waiting at the Station, is a large locomotive designed by Santo Loquasto and brought to life in PNB’s scene shop.
In a recent Seattle Times interview, Santo points out that the simple set has multiple entry points: Tharp, he […]