• A part of University of Washington football history was lost over the weekend, when former UW coach Jim Owens (yes, he's the statue in front of Husky Stadium) died at the age of 82.
• Sporting many shades of pink, thousands were out to "Race for the Cure." Grand Marshaling the quest was SPD Lt. Robin Clark.
• Tiny dancer Louise Nadeau took the ballet stage for the last time on Sunday, as she finished her 19-year career at the Pacific Northwest Ballet with a program that naturally concluded with Swan Lake.

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 ›

ONE WEEKEND ONLY 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 ›

OPENINGS more ›

Ok, we're going to do the classic oddball story. He's a weirdo, he doesn't fit in. People love that shit. Everyone thinks they're the weirdo. This guy we'll give some strange skill, some kind of physical deformity. Whatever, we'll give him fucking scissors for hands or something. more ›

AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Dr. Neal Barnard has his self-promotional finger on America's pulse with his book: Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs. Is a low-fat vegetarian diet in your future? more ›