Ghost Variations

A celebrated choreographer of her generation, Jessica Lang is Resident Choreographer of Pacific Northwest Ballet and Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet. She has created over 100 original works on companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, PNB, The Royal Ballet, and her eponymous company Jessica Lang Dance. Additional commissions include those from The Kennedy Center, The Harris Theater & Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Lang has created four original works for Pacific Northwest Ballet; Her Door to the Sky (2016), Ghost Variations (2020), Let Me Mingle Tears With Thee (2022), and Black Wave (2024). Her Door to the Sky was commissioned in part by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and performed by the company at the festival and internationally. Lang returned to PNB with Ghost Variations in 2020, for which she was nominated for The Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards for Best Digital Choreography in 2021. She was named PNB’s Resident Choreographer beginning in the fall of 2024.

Lang has also worked extensively with American Ballet Theatre. Her original creations on the main company include Her Notes, Garden Blue, and ZigZag with the legendary Tony Bennett, as well as Let Me Sing Forevermore, which was performed on the ABT Across America nationwide tour and featured regularly on Celebrity Cruise entertainment programs. Lang has created seven ballets on ABT Studio Company including Children’s Songs Dance in collaboration with music icon Chick Corea. Additionally for ABT, Lang was part of the founding faculty of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, a teaching artist for the summer intensives and the Make-a-Ballet program and served as a mentor and panelist for the incubator program.

For opera, Lang has choreographed San Francisco Opera’s production of Aida, directed by Francesca Zambello that was presented at Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, and LA Opera. Lang has directed and choreographed Stabat Mater at the 2013 Glimmerglass Opera Festival, later presented at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in 2017. Additional commissions include new works for the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra, The Harris Theater, and the Chicago Architecture Biennial in collaboration with architect Steven Holl, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum for its Works and Process series. For fashion, Lang was the movement advisor for Carolina Herrera’s Pre-Fall 2022 collection.

Lang was Artistic Director of Jessica Lang Dance from 2011-2019. The company performed in over 85 cities presented by venues including Lincoln Center, LA Music Center, The Kennedy Center, NYC Center, Tel Aviv Opera, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, BAM Fisher, and Helikon Opera.

She is the recipient of a 2018 Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, the 2017 Arison Award, and a 2014 Bessie Award. She was nominated for a Manchester Evening News Award in 2012 for Lyric Pieces on Birmingham Royal Ballet. She has been a fellow of New York City Center and The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, and in 2019 named a Caroline Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence at Princeton University. Lang’s work has also been performed by many educational institutions including The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and University of Arizona.

Jessica Lang is originally from Bucks County, PA and a graduate of The Juilliard School under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy. Lang is a former member of Twyla Tharp’s company, THARP! where she toured and performed all over the world.

Jillian Lewis is a high-end fashion and costume designer based in New York City. Born and raised in New York, Jillian graduated from Parsons School of Design with a CFDA scholarship. She has been working in the fashion industry for almost two decades, most notably as Director of Design at Ralph Lauren, Senior Design Contributor at Anthropologie and Creative Director of her namesake line.

Jillian has a history of collaborations in the dance community. Her costumes dive into the story of the choreographer or director’s work to contribute to the visual story. She has costumed productions at Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Washington Ballet, The Guggenheim Museum, The Joyce Theater, The Baryshnikov Arts Center as well as Holland America Line. She has designed costumes for Jessica Lang, Stephen Petronio, Pam Tanawitz, Brian Reeder and Liz Gerring.

Kanji Segawa, originally from Kanagawa, Japan, began his dance training with his mother Erika Akoh, studying ballet with Kan Horiuchi and Ju Horiuchi in Tokyo. Segawa was awarded the Japanese Government Artist Fellowship in 1997 to train at The Ailey School. A former member of Ailey II and Battleworks, Segawa danced extensively for Mark Morris and performed as a principal dancer in John Adams’ Nixon in China at The Metropolitan Opera. Since 1999, Segawa has been Creative Associate for Jessica Lang, assisting her creations for companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and The National Ballet of Japan. With Lang, Segawa co-choreographed the world premiere production of Turandot for The Washington National Opera, directed by Francesca Zambello. He was a dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater under the direction of Robert Battle from 2011-2023 and became Assistant Rehearsal Director in 2024.

Reed Nakayama is a Seattle-based Lighting and Projection Designer. He joined PNB in 2013 as a stagehand, and in 2019, was promoted to caretaker of the company’s copious designs. Here, he has illuminated stages in collaboration with artists such as Alexei Ratmansky (Wartime Elegy), Jessica Lang (Ghost Variations), Danielle Rowe (The Window), and Christopher Wheeldon (Curious Kingdom). He received a BFA in Performance Production from Cornish College of the Arts.