Pacific Northwest Ballet opened their 2011-2012 season with a showcase of the work of contemporary darling choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. The company, now under its 6th year with Artistic Director Peter Boal, solidly executed four of the complex pieces, a testament to the strength of Wheeldon's choreography and the precise beauty of the PNB dancers. more ›

Whim W'Him's show at the Intiman Theatre last week, reSet, offered an interesting summary of the group's career so far. It was fascinating to see the evolution of Olivier Wevers' choreography with the group in a triptych of pieces: the newly revisited 3Seasons, the powerful Monster and the debut of INAT$ (It's Not About The Money). more ›

It has been a busy year for Olivier Wevers. With his retirement this spring from the Pacific Northwest Ballet, he has thrown himself into his role as artistic director for Whim W'Him with aplomb. And he has another busy week in store... more ›

In an emotional and powerful evening PNB showcased of a dozen short pieces and highlighted the careers of eight parting dancers. more ›

Alex reviews "A Midsummer Night's Dream," decides that it is, in fact, dreamy. more ›

Seattle’s first musical of the spring, Billy Elliot, opened at the Paramount Theatre last night to an enthusiastic crowd. Not only is the score done by Sir Elton John, and the words written by Lee Hall, but the sweeping choreography and joyous cast performances tell an inspiring story that makes Billy Elliot one of the greatest musicals in recent memory. more ›

If you are coming to Pacific Northwest Ballet's Cinderella for spectacular dancing or jaw-dropping choreography, you're probably going to wish upon a different star. But the ballet is right up the alley of the "Once Upon a Time" set, and is sure to delight children and lovers (if not dance fiends). more ›

Tonight is opening night for PNB's production of Cinderella. The classic storybook ballet runs from through the 13th and may just be the most explicitly romantic way to celebrate the two-week love fest that is early February. more ›

There is no way quite so glamorous to celebrate the season like going to go see The Nutcracker. It's nostalgic and timeless. The Tchaikovsky score is as much a part of Christmas as fruitcake, and the story, imagery and the setting are all pure yule. While most of us have fond memories of going to see it as children--all dressed up in our finest and gawking mystified at the spinning ballerinas--it's a delight for adults as well. more ›

Pacific Northwest Ballet's ALL THARP performance may be your one shot to see a ballerina footing it across the stage of McCaw Hall in daisy dukes. We suggest you check it out. Not only because of the aforementioned denim booty shorts, although that's a boon, but because Twyla Tharp's showcase highlights one of the most famous examples of crossover ballet, the intermixing of classical and modern, and for us, a nice bridge between the streets and the marquee. A chance to see how hip-hop, folk, contemporary and traditional movement all combine into a night of physical ephemeralness, it's an absolutely wonderful way to spend an evening. more ›

It's been six years since Peter Boal took the artistic reins at Pacific Northwest Ballet, and this year he's made the Director's Choice program PNB's 2010-2011 season opener. The wacky Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) - from former Nederlands Dans Theater Artistic Director and choreographer Jirí Kylián - is a new aquisition for the company, as is Jerome Robbins' three-part Glass Pieces. Kylián's Petite Mort premiered in last season's Director's Choice program; you'll get the chance to see it again here. Jardí Tancat, from Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato, is an audience favorite, resurrected. Created within a decade of each other, the works in this program present a world-wide slice of dance innovation in the mid-to-late eighties. more ›

Last night Pacific Northwest Ballet premiered George Balanchine’s Coppélia to great fanfare, as their last repertory program of the 2009-10 season. Balanchine’s foray into storybook ballet, rarely seen outside of New York, here has been freshly reupholstered, drawing out the youth and charm at the heart of the ballet “comedy.” Planning on the production began two-and-a-half years ago, with the scenic and costume departments spending nearly a year building the ballet’s new, original pieces. With a budget of $1.3 million, Coppélia is PNB’s first full-length design commission in seven years. more ›

It was admittedly with some reservation that we headed to the PNB opening night performance of The Sleeping Beauty last week. We love classical ballet, but we’ve seen the boundary-pushing, über-engaging side of PNB and its offsets, and the full-length storybook ballets are usually classically vanilla, plumped with pomp and circumstance, and several hours long. more ›

Nutcracker season is again upon us. It’s a Christmas tradition for many, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet production--even with forty-five performances this season--is always well attended. The cherished fairy tale of Clara and her Nutcracker has a plot so familiar to audiences that there is simply a large-scale passive acceptance when hordes of mice suddenly start romping around the Stahlbaum living room (more on that later). more ›

If Baguette Box is a little too gourmet for your budget, say hello to banh mi at Ballet. The sandwiches arrived a while ago, actually, but the menu took a while to show up. Ballet is a Vietnamese-fusion joint off Broadway on Pike Street on Capitol Hill. People who live and work in the Pike-Pine corridor use it like a cafeteria (the worn interior and cheap prices complete the effect). more ›

Not that plenty of gray hairs won't like ARC's "Summer Dance at the Center" (8 p.m tonight and tomorrow at the Leo K. at Seattle Rep; tix $15-$25) fine, but let's face it: Ballet as an art form is a consumable cultural commodity. Like Shakespeare, it's something a number of people go see because they want to be cultured, and just as theatres do Shakespeare constantly to meet that demand, ballets cater to an older moneyed crowd (as well as princess-loving little girls) by trotting out the pretty Balanchine pieces with their tiaras and tutus on a regular enough basis to ensure that they don't scare off subscribers. more ›

This Thursday through Saturday, ARC Dance, a North Seattle contemporary ballet company, is taking over the Leo K. Theatre at Seattle Rep with an ambitious mixed-repertory evening, including four world premier ballets (8 p.m., tix $15-$25). Aside from Trinidad Marinez's Tres Tristes Tigres, this is one of the finest dance experiences available this summer. more ›

We have come late to the Nadeau appreciation society--after 17 years, that bandwagon has left the station and steamed from the harbor--but it struck us that there was something extraordinary in a 45-year-old ballerina pulling Forsythe's Urlicht out of the hat for a retirement program. more ›

BALLET (PREL-jzoh-cahjz): Not your average night at the ballet, as the evocative Ballet Preljocaj (choreographed by company founder Angelin Preljocaj) company will perform Les 4 Saisons--a UW World Series debut. Choreographed to the bright and rhythmic music from Vivaldi, Les 4 Saisons provides a playful, colorful, and unconventional interpretation through dance. more ›

We had to choose just one night of PNB's Swan Lake, and so we went with retiring Louise Nadeau's Odette/Odile--as did as many other people as it takes to fill McCaw Hall. Nadeau and Karel Cruz were everything we wanted: love at first sight's boundary-blurring union of echoing gestures, and then, in a little black dress, Odile's "You want this?" rampage. We ran into a friend, though, who was back for a fourth time, and told us how Jonathan Porretta kept his Jester's schtick evolving from night to night. Check the casting combinations for the six shows left, tonight through Sunday. more ›

For ballerinas, Swan Lake is a sought-after, tough, and rewarding double role: Odette the good swan and Odile the evil swan. But it all began with the music. In 1875 Tchaikovsky got the commission from the Bolshoi for a full-length ballet based on the Russian folk-tale of an enchanted swan and the handsome prince who falls in love with her; he composed a lush symphonic score that offers choreographers both languid melodic lines and lively melodies. (Familiar plot: boy meets swan, boy betrays and loses swan, swan commits suicide, boy despairs.) The Swan Lake we know today--indeed, the whole notion of ballerina-as-swan (one speaks of "a ballet of swans")--evolved from this specific piece of theater, grounded in the 19th century conventions of classical ballet, with its reliance on a rigid sequence of dances (waltz-solo-march-action scene). more ›

We said Pacific Northwest Ballet's Broadway Festival was an enormous amount of fun, and it sounds like plenty of you figured that out for yourselves. Artistic director Peter Boal just sent out this "Next round's on me!" email: "With 5,250 tickets purchased to date, we have broken the old record for single tickets sold for a mixed repertory program. It is also the highest grossing mixed repertory program in our company's history, surpassing the old record set by Valentine in 2006." Two shows left: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. more ›

We have to start here by jumping in and saying that this is easily one of the most exciting weekends of theatre we've seen in town in months--two festivals running, genre-breaking opera, ballet crossing over into Broadway show tune territory, two shows that have had their runs extended (, you've lost your bloody mind. It doesn't get better than this! more ›

ZIPCAR OPEN HOUSE: Drop in at the grand opening of an actual downtown office for Zipcar--in the old Dept. of Licensing location at 3rd and Union. The open house runs until 5 p.m., and if you stop in and join Zipcar today, there's no annual fee for your first year. We're told there's also a prize wheel where you can win driving credits and other goodies, plus free snacks. We use the Zipcar ourselves, and we're happy to hear that the City of Seattle is joining them in a car-sharing arrangement for city employees. more ›

It's admittedly contrary of us to be looking for a way "in" to George Balanchine's Jewels (TM). Jewels are meant to be looked at. That's why we've put the photos up at the top of this post. Why type our fingers to the bone when you can just take a gander online and decide if that's your kind of thing? more ›

The best music in George Bizet's early opera, The Pearl Fishers, comes barely 10 minutes after the curtain rises; it's a justly celebrated duet between childhood buddies Nadir and Zurga. Nadir is sung by William Burden, who impressed local audiences last season in Iphigenia; he's a tenor, so you know he's going to get the girl, while Christopher Feigum, a baritone, sings Zurga, and you know he's going go through some soul-searching before he Does The Right Thing, in this case burning down the village that's just elected him chief so that his BFF and the girl (a fallen priestess) can make their getaway. more ›

The moon always seems to be full in Maurice Sendak's illustrations. He's done some 90 children's books, two of them cherished icons (Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen), along with one ballet. As it happens, Seattle is the beneficiary of this unique venture into set-and-costume design: the wildly popular Nutcracker, which celebrates its 25th season this year. more ›

There is nary a tutu to be seen on Pacific Northwest Ballet's New Works program (through November 16, tickets $25-$155), which is an eclectic collection of dance pieces by Mark Morris, PNB's Kiyon Gaines, Benjamin Millepied, and William Forsythe. Not that we have anything against tutus. In fact, some of our best friends...but that's neither here nor there. We bring it up only to emphasize the leap that Peter Boal is making with PNB, in integrating so many kinds of new works into the company's repertoire. more ›

O'Neal's back it up leads off the program, assembling the dancers in street/rehearsal clothes, very "Fame! I'm gonna live forever," with music by MF Doom, X Clan, Riuchi Sakamoto, Pete Rock & CLSmooth, and Cut Chemist (featuring Edan & Mr. Lif). Costumes for all the pieces are by Jessica Markiewicz, and they add a great deal to each. They warm up, step into dance floor moves, pop and lock, and in general, front like an MTV hip hop special. But there's a current of contact improv that flows through the piece--O'Neal said later she was thinking of Peter Pan and his shadow--where the dancers grab at each other's ankles and are pulled along or pull themselves. We're not sure why, but it pleased us, this disruptive play during what felt like a set of polished pros, strutting moves. more ›

With this year's Bumbershoot nearly upon us, let's continue to hope that the weekend weather keeps looking good. If you don't have tickets yet, stop by your local Starbucks to avoid the lines and fees at the gates. Check out a few more tips (bring water and a jacket! take the bus! wear sunscreen! call your mother!) at the Bumbershoot site. more ›