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Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Lucien Postlewaite and Christopher D’Ariano in PNB resident choreographer Jessica Lang’s haunting Ghost Variations. Photo © Angela Sterling. Peter Boal and Kiyon Ross have a knack for programming the final rep of the season to entail the kind of sentiment that makes a whole season’s worth of impressions resound in the beauty of the last few performances. The second weekend of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s fifty-third season not only al

Retiring Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy with company dancers in PNB resident choreographer Jessica Lang’s Her Door to the Sky. Photo © Angela Sterling. Pacific Northwest Ballet’s final repertory program is an incredibly strong triple bill that highlights the diverse choreographic strengths of resident choreographer Jessica Lang. Placed in chronological order, Her Door to the Sky, Ghost Variations, and ZigZag are so distinct in their voice that o

Pacific Northwest Ballet School professional division students in Ashton Edwards’ Hues of You, presented during PNB’s 2026 NEXT STEP choreographers’ showcase. Photo © Lindsay Thomas. New works are an intoxicating thing. With arts organizations around the country facing extreme cuts in funding, putting resources towards the creation of new works is an increasingly exorbitant luxury. For Pacific Northwest Ballet’s cherished NEXT STEP program, which gives company dancers the opp

“Of elves in white dresses, whose hems are always damp…of snow-coloured wilis who waltz pitilessly, and of all those delicious apparitions you have encountered in the Harz mountains and on the banks of the Ilse, in a mist softened by German moonlight…” -Théophile Gautier, July 5th, 1841 The balance of innovative new creations and historical preservation within Pacific Northwest Ballet’s mission has consistently proven the benefits of remaining in relation to the past while st

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Elizabeth Murphy and Christopher D’Ariano as Giselle and Albert, in Peter Boal’s acclaimed staging of Giselle. Photo © Angela Sterling. “She was all dance, and laughter, and delight.” -Victor Hugo, Fantômes, 1829 Pacific Northwest Ballet has, for well over a decade, been at the forefront of historically-informed stagings of classic works. In 2011, Peter Boal’s restaging of the Romantic-era masterpiece, Giselle, presented a weal

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Clara Ruf Maldonado and Lucien Postlewaite in Ulysses Dove’s Red Angels . Photo © Angela Sterling. The second weekend of a run always provides an opportunity for word to spread, but Pacific Northwest Ballet’s triple-bill program, “Firebird”, broke records in this regard. Fresh faces, stunned by their inaugural ballet experience, and familiar devotees returning repeatedly to witness Rep Four’s potency created a tangible sense of gra

Pacific Northwest Ballet School students in the world premiere production of Jessica Lang’s Momotaro . PNB presents Momotaro as the newest entry in its series of family matinee ballets, onstage at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall March 21 – 28, 2026. Photo © Lindsay Thomas. George Balanchine, forever a champion of including children in his ballets, once said, “Their taste of art should be developed from early childhood. They should learn to love the beautiful and impractical as

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Angelica Generosa in the title role of Kent Stowell’s Firebird . Photo © Angela Sterling. It is the stories of good versus evil that we return to most frequently, seeking within them both a mirror and a guide. Ballet is filled with such stories, yet Kent Stowell’s Firebird was last programmed at Pacific Northwest Ballet during his final season as co-artistic director twenty-one years ago. This March, it returns restored and revital

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in Kent Stowell’s Cinderella . Photo © Angela Sterling. It is the stories we tell ourselves the most that reveal what we urgently need to hear, and the kindness of a Cinderella tale lands potently today. Some ballets carry an essence that confirms what a sacred place this art form touches, a place ungrazed by words where beauty prevails, and Cinderella is indeed a ballet that reminds our own hearts what they so dearly cherish. This

Happily Ever After: Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite as Cinderella and her Prince, in Kent Stowell’s Cinderella . Photo © Angela Sterling. “Partly from the word ‘cinders’ and partly from the Greek word ‘ele’...giver of light.” - Margaret Fleming-Markarian Kent Stowell’s Cinderella , last seen mere weeks before Covid-19 distancing measures would shut McCaw Hall’s doors for eighteen long months, returns to Pacific Northwest Ballet

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Dylan Wald as Drosselmeier, and PNB School student June Grossman as Clara, in the party scene from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, choreographed by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling, 2025. “The most wonderful things can be seen if you have the right sort of eyes for it.” -E.T.A Hoffmann Perhaps because it comes around every December, its broad audience appeal that keeps ballet companies aflo

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Christopher D’Ariano and Elizabeth Murphy in Dani Rowe’s The Window. Photo © Angela Sterling. During the final performance of In the Upper Room at Pacific Northwest Ballet, it seemed that perhaps just this one time, the cast of thirteen might truly be incapable of bringing that raging energy to a still. And yet, miraculously, they did. After the seventh standing ovation of the run, as lights lifted and we turned to leave the theater,

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite (center) with corps de ballet dancers (L-R) Destiny Wimpye and Genevieve Waldorf in Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room . Photo © Angela Sterling. “A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I’m beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.” -Twyla Tharp Last June, choreographer Rena Butler asked a potent question that has echoed ever since. “What do we need a balle

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Leta Biasucci and Lucien Postlewaite in Diamonds from Jewels , choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling. George Balanchine’s Jewels never lands identically across different eyes, and that is exactly what he intended: for the interpretations to be our own. But there is one thing that​​ audiences seemed to share night after night at Pacific Northwest Ballet during the first rep of the se

Pacific Northwest Ballet soloists Clara Ruf Maldonado and Christian Poppe, and corps de ballet dancer Yuki Takahashi in Emeralds from Jewels , choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling. Perhaps there is no word that better encapsulates George Balanchine’s Jewels than “rich.” Rich in hue, in feeling, in beauty; rich in gesture, in range of expression, in serenity, and above all, in the sense of splendor that seeps from the stage.

Clara Ruf Maldonado and Lucien Postlewaite in an excerpt from Jean-Christophe Maillot's Roméo et Juliette. Photo by DAN LAO We go to the...

Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division students in Amanda Morgan’s Ether , presented during the 2025 NEXT STEP...

Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in the world premiere of Rena Butler’s Cracks. Photo © Angela Sterling. In the final days of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s fifty-second season, edge-of-summer energy roared through McCaw Hall with ineffable vigor. The end of a season always feels particularly full of sentiment, but closing on a program so finely tailored to the company’s vast range seemed to encompass extraordinary gratitude for what we’ve been allowed to witness this

Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Noah Martzall and soloist Madison Rayn Abeo in Kiyon Ross’s …throes of increasing wonder, which PNB is presenting on a triple-bill with works by Rena Butler and Twyla Tharp, running May 30 – June 8, 2025. Photo © Angela Sterling Pacific Northwest Ballet has been uplifting us all season, but their final program of the season is a particularly joyous, thought-provoking celebration of the human experience through three distinct voi

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Angelica Generosa and Dylan Wald in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette , Photo ©...