On a cool afternoon last November, Linda Past Pehrson, just a few days shy of her 77th birthday, warmed up backstage at the Peridance Center in New York City. She was wearing the white tutu she’d spent the previous evening ironing—her costume for the latest Performing in NY Showcase, organized by Kat Wildish. Pehrson’s group […]
Connie Smith has, arguably, the most important job at Ballet West: She’s the 3- to 5-year-olds’ ballet teacher. Teaching at the Frederick Quinney Lawson Ballet West Academy—a feeder school that provides a portion of the company’s talent—means Smith has the challenging task of establishing a strong foundation for her students right from the time they […]
Evelyn Cisneros-Legate is bringing her hard-earned expertise to Ballet West. The former San Francisco Ballet star is taking over all four campuses of The Frederick Quinney Lawson Ballet West Academy as the school’s new director. Cisneros-Legate, whose mother put her in ballet classes in an attempt to help her overcome her shyness, trained at the […]
To celebrate Valentine’s Day in the most dance-centric way possible, we sat down with five powerhouse dance-teaching couples to talk about their love stories. What do they admire about each other? What are their couple goals and their teaching philosophies, and how do they make their relationships work, especially when they work together? Get ready […]
These four ballet companies refreshed their productions of the beloved holiday classic. Pacific Northwest Ballet School student Eden Anan as Clara. Photo courtesy of PNB. From 1983 to 2014, PNB had performed its own Nutcracker, choreographed by founding artistic director Kent Stowell, with scenic and costume design by children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. […]
Long before Allison DeBona took the stage as a first soloist with Ballet West, she had chosen to give up dancing to have a normal adolescence. In eighth grade she quit ballet and joined her high-school drill team. In spite of this decision, DeBona’s teacher, Jean Gedeon of Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, never gave up on […]
“When I was 15, my mother decided that I should get a job,” says Tauna Hunter. “She said, ‘Do what you know how to do.’ So I started teaching children in my basement and decided then that dance was going to make me a living.” Now in her 60s, Hunter has never had a job […]