Moments before Pacific Northwest Ballet launched its 2024-25 season, Pacific Northwest Ballet Artistic Director Peter Boal and Associate Artistic Director Kiyon Ross stepped out in front of the sparkly-red McCaw Hall stage to announce to the audience that corps de ballet dancer Luther DeMyer has been promoted to Soloist. Click to read more about Luther and his career at PNB!
Welcome to the first program of the new season. What a season it promises to be with the unveiling of our much-anticipated new production of The Sleeping Beauty, the return of Roméo et Juliette, and three world premieres. There are also plenty of fan favorites like Crystal Pite’s Emergence, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Marco Goecke’s Mopey, and Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs. The excitement starts right here – right now, with Rep I!
Pacific Northwest Ballet School has announced that Kurt Froman has been hired to lead the School’s Men’s Division. An accomplished and highly respected teacher and mentor with dancing careers at New York City Ballet and on Broadway, Mr. Froman was the resident choreographer of the Broadway show Billy Elliot, The Musical, training and coaching the young actors in the title role. At PNB School, Mr. Froman will teach, support, and mentor the School’s male-identifying students, and serve as a liaison with students’ families.
Whether it be in the Phelps’ Center dressing room, emphatically discussing fantasy football picks, or on McCaw Hall’s stage, charming the audience as one of the sailors in Jerome Robbins’ Fancy Free, James’ enthusiasm is infectious and his presence irreplaceable. As a San Francisco native looking north, never in a million years did he expect to end up at PNB: “It was a very tall company at the time [I was hired]—long legs, slender bodies—there was a look. That wasn’t me.” However, over his twenty-year tenure with PNB, James has set himself apart as one who defines what the company is today, and for years to come. Learn more about James and his career at PNB in this blog.
Almost fifty years ago, I attended a New York City Ballet performance of George Balanchine’s Coppélia. Somewhere in the middle of the first act, I decided I wanted to dance. You know the rest of this story. Coppélia is all about the dancing, and the music, and the laughter, colors, costumes, and scenery. It may have the same effect on you as it did on me all those years ago.
Coppélia marks the final performances staged by PNB Rehearsal Director Otto Neubert, who will be retiring at the end of the season. Mr. Neubert joined Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1992 and has assisted PNB’s artistic directors in rehearsing teaching, and scheduling the Company, as well as rehearsing countless PNB School students in their roles for George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® and other productions. He has also performed in PNB’s The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote and Swan Lake. Learn more about Otto and his impactful career at PNB in this blog!
The curtain comes down on Pacific Northwest Ballet’s 2023-2024 season with its annual Season Encore Performance, a celebratory salute to the season and a fond farewell to departing dancers, including Ezra Thomson and James Kirby Rogers. Read more about these two dancers and their carreers at PNB in this blog.
PNB is excited to announce Jessica Lang will be PNB’s next Resident Choreographer. PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal states, "Jessica will commence her residency in August with a new creation for our first program of the 2024-25 season. This will be her fourth new work for the Company. PNB will then have five works by Jessica in active rep and we look forward to adding several more during her residency.” Learn more about Jessica and her residency in this blog.
"What goes into planning a season? There are more factors to list than my word count allows."
"We all have our harrowing stories from mid-March of 2020. Naturally, mine involves PNB. On the morning of March 12th Executive Director Ellen Walker informed me all theaters on Seattle Center campus had been asked to suspend any further activity. I told her I needed twelve more hours. That night we were scheduled to take the stage for the dress rehearsal of David Dawson’s Empire Noir and Alejandro Cerrudo’s One Thousand Pieces. Though we were able to run and film the dress rehearsal before retreating to our homes, PNB has never performed the complete One Thousand Pieces for a live audience. How grateful we are to finally bring this piece to the stage with you in the audience.