Peter Boal’s radiant staging of Giselle returns with all-new scenery and costumes by award-winning designer Jérôme Kaplan (above) who is best known to PNB audiences for his designs for Don Quixote, Roméo et Juliette.
Q: What steps were critical to your process in creating designs for sets and costumes for PNB’s Giselle?
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 2011 production of Giselle has been staged by PNB artistic director Peter Boal, based in part on primary sources from Paris and St. Petersburg, with the assistance of dance historians Marian Smith and Doug Fullington. In 2014, new scenery and costumes designed by Jérôme Kaplan will be added to the production.
Recently, during a rare photo shoot in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s studios, the work of three exceptional artists–principal dancer Kaori Nakamura, costume designer Jérôme Kaplan, and photographer Angela Sterling–produced these striking images.
The shoot was an ideal opportunity to showcase Kaori Nakamura’s artistry in anticipation of the conclusion of her brilliant, 17-year performing career with the […]
WHAT’S OLD IS NEW
We’ve all noticed the shift: from artisanal breads and cheeses to homemade cider and chickens in backyards, what’s old is new again. Here in Seattle, urban farming is chic. And, at least at PNB, the old-world way of hand-painting large scenery (AKA “drops”) has never gone out of style. Nearly every set piece […]
Imagine this: A large studio filled with young children auditioning for PNB’s Nutcracker. Adults sit behind a table at the front of the studio talking quietly with their lists of numbers and names, pencils and notepads. Groups of students are led across the floor doing various steps until, suddenly, one young girl trips […]
Stories are the bridge between the public and the art form. We can’t get them to watch The Four Temperaments until we get them on that bridge. And I can do those stories in ways that haven’t been done before.
Kent Stowell in Mindy […]
“In Westphalia, the former Saxony, all is not dead which lies buried. When we wander there through the old oak groves we can hear the voices of the olden time, and the re-echoes of those deeply mysterious magic spells in which there gushes a [great] fullness of life …A mysterious awe thrilled […]
The History ~ Since its premiere in 1841, Giselle has become one of the most popular ballets of all time and is considered ballet’s great tragedy. Giselle represents the greatest achievement of ballet’s Romantic era. After it fell out of repertory at the Paris Opera, it returned to the West via Russia […]
Peter Boal’s World Premiere staging of Giselle marks the first time an American ballet company has revived a classic based on original material researched by Stepanov notation expert Doug Fullington in collaboration with leading Giselle scholar Marian Smith.
Our work on Giselle continued in early January with a week of rehearsals […]