Description & Purpose
The Pacific Northwest Ballet I.D.E.A. Committee is a cross-functional committee that values equity, diversity and inclusion as guiding organizational principles. We seek to reflect and embrace our community and to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment in which artists, audiences, students, staff and volunteers of all backgrounds learn, collaborate and participate for the benefit of all. The work of the I.D.E.A. Committee directly supports PNB’s mission to inspire, engage and educate through dance. PNB seeks to build a fully-inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization, creating space for shifting perspectives that reflect our industry’s continual evolution. Diversity and diverse perspectives advance PNB’s ability to achieve new standards of excellence in every aspect of our organization.
Scope & oBjectives
The I.D.E.A. Committee is dedicated to:
- Building PNB artist, board, faculty, staff, student and volunteer awareness about issues relating to race and other forms of diversity
- Promoting learning opportunities for all artists, board, faculty, staff and students around equity, race and other forms of diversity, and inclusion
- Integrating equity learning and work throughout all facets of the organization
- Filtering PNB’s programs, practices and policies through a lens that is sensitive to issues around equity, race other forms of diversity, accessibility and inclusion
- Continually reviewing PNB’s I.D.E.A. work and creating/implementing strategies to improve where needed
- Cultivating authentic relationships and engagement with under-invited communities in our work outside of PNB
- Inviting feedback relating to I.D.E.A. work from artists, board, faculty, staff, student and families, volunteers, audiences and community partners
- Ensuring our artistic output is reflective of our community
- Maintaining public transparency by I.D.E.A. Committee updates and statements to our website and annual report
I.D.E.A. Leadership Team
Sarah Kolat
I.D.E.A Committee Co-Lead
Sarah Kolat joined PNB in 2021 and currently serves as the Institutional Giving Manager, where she fosters government, corporate, and foundation relations for the organization and is I.D.E.A. Committee Co-Lead. She is also a proud PNB School parent. In 2024, she launched the Audio Dance Description program. Prior to her role at PNB, Sarah lectured at the University of Washington School of Music. She completed her Ph.D. in Musicology at UW, where she studied experimental performance art, programming, and the relevance of classical arts institutions in the 21st century.
Kristen Ramer Liang
I.D.E.A Committee Co-Lead
Kristen Ramer Liang serves as Executive Assistant to PNB’s Executive Director Ellen Walker, as primary liaison to the Governing Board, Advisory Council, and Young Patrons Circle, and as administrative liaison to PNB’s internal Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee. Prior to this role, Kristen managed PNB’s Wallace Foundation-funded Building Audiences for Sustainability (BAS) initiative from 2015 – 2019, focused on growing PNB’s 25-40 year old audience. In 2020 she led the launch of PNB is Listening, a collaborative series between PNB artists and staff that highlights diverse voices in our local community and the larger dance world. Kristen holds a BA in music from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and an MFA in arts leadership from Seattle University.
Naomi Glass
Governance Subcommittee
Naomi Glass serves PNB in the capacities of DanceChance Manager, PNB School faculty, teaching artist for STG Dance for PD®, and co-lead of PNB’s I.D.E.A. Committee. In her first profession, Glass danced for the Houston Ballet for a decade, retiring at Soloist rank. Glass’ favorite performing experiences include roles within works by Nacho Duato, Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Trey McIntyre, and Stanton Welch. A strong believer that dance is for everyone and creativity is inherent in all, Glass has shared her love of movement widely, teaching extensively in every sector, within many organizations across the US. In 2020, Glass was the recipient of the Professor Joan White Award from the Faculty of Education at the Royal Academy of Dance in London for her research work focused upon creativity, expressivity and movement for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Glass holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Houston and a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Bath, UK.
Kiyon Ross
Governance Subcommittee
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Kiyon Ross trained at the Baltimore School for the Arts, Pittsburg Ballet Theatre, School of American Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. He joined PNB as a new dancer in 2001. His favorite roles included Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Symphony in Three Movements by George Balanchine; Waiting at the Station, In the Upper Room, and Opus 111 by Twyla Tharp; and Emergence by Crystal Pite. While dancing, he earned his BA in Non-Profit Leadership from Seattle University through the Second Stage program. Kiyon retired as a Soloist in 2015. After retirement, he served on the PNB School faculty, where he taught in the DanceChance program and coordinated the Next Step program. In 2019, he became Director of Company Operations, and in 2022, he was appointed Associate Artistic Director. He has choreographed works for PNB, PNB School, Ballet Arkansas, and Atlanta Ballet and staged works by Twyla Tharp.
Ellen Walker
Governance Subcommittee
Ellen Walker is in her twenty-third season with Pacific Northwest Ballet, and her twelfth season as Executive Director. She oversees an operating budget of $31 million and a staff of more than 600 full and part-time employees, including four collective bargaining units. From 2003 – 2014 Ms. Walker led significant audience development initiatives as Director of Marketing & Communications for PNB, with an emphasis since 2009 on the cultivation of new audiences. Under her leadership, PNB has become known as an industry leader in making ballet a more inclusive, diverse, and welcoming art form.
Ms. Walker was responsible for managing the relocation of and campaign to fund PNB School’s Eastside location, The Francia Russell Center, which opened in 2017. Prior to joining PNB, Ms. Walker was a marketing and sponsorship consultant to arts and civic organizations in Seattle, and managed numerous projects for Seattle Center and Seattle Center Foundation. From 1988 to 1999 she was Director of Marketing for Seattle Children’s Theatre, where she managed successful efforts to triple the size of the audience for this renowned regional theatre serving young people and families. From 2013-2014 Ms. Walker served on the faculty of Seattle University’s MFA Arts Leadership program, teaching arts marketing to a new generation of nonprofit arts leaders. She recently completed service as Vice President of the Inspire Washington board and as Board Secretary and Council Chair for Dance/USA, the national field service organization; she currently serves on the Seattle Center Foundation board. In 2021 she was selected as one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s Women of Influence. Ms. Walker is from Seattle, Washington and attended the University of Washington and Trinity College, Dublin.
Jennifer Turner
Administrative Liaison
Jennifer Turner trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the School of American Ballet, Miami City Ballet School, Ballet Academy East, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She performed with Miami City Ballet, Ballet Austin, and with members of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. She has served on the faculty at Ballet Austin Academy, Ballet San Angelo, Company Dance Traverse, and Teachers College Community School. She joined the PNB School faculty in 2019.
Community & I.D.E.A. Partnerships
ArtsWA
Bellevue School District
Casa Latina
Cultural Competency and Equity Coalition (MoBBallet)
Dance/USA’s The Equity Project (Theresa Ruth Howard)
El Centro de la Raza
Highline School District
Jewish Family Services
Mary Schwartz Summit
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
Path with Art
Phil Chan (Final Bow for Yellowface, Gold Standard Arts Foundation)
Seattle Arts & Culture for Antiracism
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Seattle Center
Seattle Public Schools
Seattle Theatre Group
Seattle University Masters in Teaching Program
Spectrum Dance Theatre
Steve Sneed
Teaching Artist Training Lab (TAT Lab)
TeenTix
Tlingit & Haida WA Chapter
Treehouse
Tukwila School District
Union Cultural Center
University of Washington Occupational Therapy
Washington State Department of Services for the Blind
YWCA