Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Kyle Davis has announced that he will be retiring at the end of PNB’s 2026-27 season. Davis joined PNB as an apprentice in 2008 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2009, soloist in 2016, and principal in 2020.
In 2024, Davis, with his wife and PNB principal dancer Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan, launched Green Bay Ballet Theater, NE Wisconsin’s only professional ballet company. (For more information, visit gbballettheater.org).
Davis’s newest ballet, The Raven, inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe poem, debuts Friday, November 6, as part of PNB’s mixed-bill rep, GHOST STORIES, running through November 15. And Davis’s PNB career will be celebrated at the company’s Season Encore Performance on Sunday, June 13, 2027, at McCaw Hall. Tickets to GHOST STORIES as well as the rest of PNB’s 2026-27 season including the Season Encore Performance are available through the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at 301 Mercer Street.
“To only say that I am grateful for this career would be an absolute understatement, but to find all the right words that encapsulate these past nearly two decades feels like an actual impossibility,” said Davis, when announcing his impending retirement.
“Pacific Northwest Ballet has been my home for longer than I have lived anywhere in my life, and from PNB I have learned and developed talents beyond dancing that I carry with me to the front of the room wherever I go. I know I will truly enjoy my final season as a dancer – sharing the stage with friends and dancing for the Seattle audience who has been there with me all this time – but as someone wholeheartedly invested in the future of this artform, I am even more excited to fully transition my focus towards creating ballets and directing – to being in a position committed to our artform and how it can be loved by everyone.”
“Kyle’s dedication to ballet extends far beyond his phenomenal talent as a dancer,” said PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal.
“He relishes every opportunity for further exploration including teaching, coaching, choreographing, staging, promoting, and directing. I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Kyle for the past two decades, watching his impeccable technique and musicality applied to every role he dances. He incorporates coaching, while simultaneously finding the optimal approach for himself and for his fellow castmates. An attentive partner, an invested actor, and a thrilling performer, Kyle will be missed on stage. We take comfort in knowing his future in dance will bring many more chapters. We have much to look forward to from this multi-faceted artist. We congratulate Kyle on the first act of an extraordinary career.”
Peter Boal and Kyle Davis, photo © Lindsay Thomas.
“While I am sad to see Kyle retire, I know it is the right time for him to commit to full-time choreographing and directing,” said choreographer and New York City Ballet Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky, with whom Davis has worked extensively as a choreographic assistant since 2022. “Kyle has had a wonderful career at PNB, dancing many great ballets. His performances were always shaped by his choreographer’s mind — a rare quality that made him a truly special performer and interpreter. I was fortunate to have Kyle assist me on numerous projects, and I know firsthand how knowledgeable he is in music, art history, stage management, and coaching, as well as how passionate he is about our art form. I am convinced his next chapter will be incredibly exciting.”
Kyle Davis is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. He trained at Makaroff School of Ballet and on scholarship at Rock School for Dance Education and North Carolina School of the Arts, and attended summer courses on scholarship at Milwaukee Ballet School, the School of American Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. He also studied with Ethan Stiefel and Warren Conover.
In 2008, Davis won the Prix de Lausanne competition in Lausanne, Switzerland. He also won various awards in the Youth American Grand Prix Regional and Finals in 2005 and 2006. He was a 2007-2008 recipient of the Elizabeth Harriet Weaver Memorial Scholarship and the Martha and Spencer Love Foundation Scholarship for Excellence in the Arts at the North Carolina School of the Arts. He joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 2008 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2009, soloist in 2016, and principal in 2020.
Davis has performed leading roles in George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, Agon, Coppélia, Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée, Emeralds, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prodigal Son, Rubies, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, La Source, Square Dance, Tarantella, and Theme and Variations; Andrew Bartee’s arms that work; Peter Boal’s Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty; Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump and One Thousand Pieces; David Dawson’s Empire Noir; Ulysses Dove’s Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven; William Forsythe’s New Suite, One Flat Thing, reproduced, and The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude; Paul Gibson’s Rush; Marco Goecke’s Place a Chill; Ronald Hynd’s The Sleeping Beauty; Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort; Jessica Lang’s Her Door to the Sky and Let Me Mingle Teas With Thee; Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Cendrillon and Roméo et Juliette; Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Cylindrical Shadows; Justin Peck’s Debonair, The Times Are Racing, and Year of the Rabbit; Crystal Pite’s Emergence, Plot Point, and The Season’s Canon; Yuri Possokhov’s RAkU; Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Wartime Elegy; Jerome Robbins’ The Concert and Dances at a Gathering; Kent Stowell’s Carmina Burana, Cinderella, Nutcracker, and Swan Lake; Susan Stroman’s TAKE FIVE…More or Less; and Twyla Tharp’s Brief Fling, Nine Sinatra Songs, Waiting at the Station,and Waterbaby Bagatelles. He originated leading roles in Donald Byrd’s Love and Loss and And the sky was not cloudy all day, Jessica Lang’s Ghost Variations, Edwaard Liang’s The Veil Between Worlds, Mark Morris’ Kammermusik No. 3, Matthew Neenan’s Bacchus, and Price Suddarth’s Dawn Patrol and Signature.
Kyle’s works for PNB’s NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase include Sylvia Pas de Deux (2012), Fanfare and Waltz from “Sylvia” (2013), A Hundred Ways to Paint the Portion of a Plane Bounded by Such a Curve, Part Two (2015), Make It So (2016), Variegated Voices (2017), Clean Phrases (2020); What Is Here Today (2023); and Pas de Deux from an Unnamed Story (2025, co-choreographed with Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan.) In 2014, he choreographed the third act of Sylvia for PNB School’s Annual School Performance. He has also created over 20 works for companies, schools, and dance festivals outside of PNB, was a 2017 choreographic resident at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and a 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Gonzaga University. In 2018, Kyle choreographed A Dark and Lonely Space for PNB’s mainstage. In 2020, he restaged Sylvia Pas de Deux for the main company’s Ballet Sun Valley tour and PNB’s digital season. In 2021, he choreographed Las Estrellas for PNB’s digital season.
Since 2022, Kyle has worked as choreographic assistant to Alexei Ratmansky. His collaborations with Ratmansky include Tchaikovsky Overtures at Bayerische Staatsballett, Coppélia at Teatro alla Scala, Art of the Fugue at Royal Danish Ballet, and Wunderland at Hamburg Ballet. Additionally, Kyle taught for Pacific Northwest Ballet School from 2010-2020 before joining the rotation of PNB Company teachers in 2021. He has guest taught company class for San Francisco Ballet, Alonzo King’s LINES, and Royal Danish Ballet. He received his Certificate of Management of Successful Arts and Cultural Organizations from University of Maryland DeVos Institute of Arts Management in 2020. Along with his wife, PNB principal dancer Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan, Davis is Founding Artistic Director of Green Bay Ballet Theater.
While dancing with PNB, Davis pursued his continuing education in a degree program through Seattle University, funded, in part, by Second Stage, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s career transition program for its company dancers. Conceived in 1999, Second Stage supports PNB dancers and PNB School Professional Division students in achieving their goals following a career in dance. Its resources allow dancers to take classes, get subsidized tuition at Seattle University, access mentors and vocation counseling, and receive grant monies. Since its inception, Second Stage has provided over $1.6 million in grants to over 205 dancers. For more information, visit PNB.org.
