We’re so lucky to welcome artists from all over the world to PNB’s studios to stage ballets. Each ballet requires a stager, the artist who teaches the steps, timing, and intention of a ballet on behalf of the choreographer.
For our upcoming mixed bill EMERGENCE, RAkU choreographer Yuri […]
Red Angels, coming up on PNB’s DIRECTOR’S CHOICE program March 16–25, has caught our attention around PNB’s offices. Four incredibly athletic dancers (plus the resounding soundtrack of electric violin) consume the studios during rehearsals of this red hot ballet.
Knowing the late choreographer Ulysses Dove created Red Angels […]
Complicated and mesmerizing, One Flat Thing, reproduced follows a cueing system that unfolds in a rapidly shifting network of relationships. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the music does not direct the piece; the dancers direct the piece. Time is organized as dancers give and receive cues, collectively determining the flow of the dance.
Watching a complicated ballet without any prior knowledge can feel like watching the season finale of a TV show without having seen a single episode, or beginning a novel by reading the final chapter.
One Flat Thing, reproduced is a complicated dance, so consider this blog as your road map […]
by Artistic Director Peter Boal
Ask anyone to name two ballets they have seen. I’m willing to bet Nutcracker would come first, Swan Lake second. We agree. Swan Lake is the second-most-attended ballet in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s history.
If Nutcracker […]
Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. She made her professional choreographic debut in 1990 with […]
Let’s just soak in the genius of Crystal Pite for a moment.
You’ve probably heard us gushing about this groundbreaking choreographer ever since we first staged Emergence in 2013 (and again now that we’re putting on the American premiere of her piece Plot Point). It’s for good […]
PNB’s upcoming HER STORY program features three of our favorite choreographers: Twyla Tharp (Afternoon Ball), Crystal Pite (Plot Point), and Jessica Lang (Her Door to the Sky). You can get a taste of all three groundbreaking choreographers’ work this November 3–12 at McCaw Hall, but if you can’t wait until […]
Jewels. The name sounds expensive and perfect for a box-office hit. But when Balanchine’s “plotless full-length ballet,” as it was touted, premiered at New York City Ballet on April 13, 1967, it had no title, only three sections called Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds. (Balanchine explained, “I thought of doing sapphire, too—I had Schoenberg […]