Macho, moody, and whimsical, PNB's All Robbins program is a stand-up triple, if not a home run (at McCaw Hall through June 8; tickets: $20-$150). Actually the Mariners could learn a lot from the raw athleticism, discipline, and teamwork on display. Opening night's Fancy Free sparked and fizzed erratically; conductor Stewart Kershaw, swinging the baton sans panache, kept Bernstein's charged score sounding off-kilter. But PNB rallied during In the Night, and by the time The Concert wrapped up, even the golf-clappers in the audience were on their feet cheering. more ›

Two-thirds of Pacific Northwest Ballet's "All Balanchine" show is surprising and exciting. Showcasing three ballets spanning the career of George Balanchine, the leading American ballet choreographer of the 20th Century and famously the co-founder of the New York City Ballet, PNB manages to both remind audiences of how adventurous dance can be, while at the same time reinforcing the sense that major ballet companies have to carefully balance the experimental with the traditional in order to keep audiences coming. more ›

SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror. more ›