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The dancers are ready, the costumes are done, the sets are loaded. But have you given any thought to the people on the other side of the curtain? “The audience’s experience doesn’t start when the lights go down,” says Lincoln Jones, founder and director of Los Angeles’ American Contemporary Ballet (ACB). By the time the […]
In a surprise to no one, students are generally pumped to be cast in solos and featured roles. Background parts where they’re more part of the scenery than the spotlight, however, typically inspire less enthusiasm. Yet this is exactly where most young dancers begin their careers. And it’s just as much a part of what […]
My first ballet teacher, Karen Mills Jennings, found me when I was 4 through a public school program she started called Super Saturdays. If you had a spark for one of the arts disciplines, you could get a scholarship to the Flint School of Performing Arts. I got to dance my heart out! When I […]
It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since Noelani Pantastico joined the faculty of her alma mater, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. The beloved dancer had officially hung up her pointe shoes only a few months prior, capping off an incredible 25-year career onstage with Pacific Northwest Ballet and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Now, […]
On the day of her final performance with Pacific Northwest Ballet in February 2022, principal dancer Noelani Pantastico stepped onto the stage for one last company class and was greeted by a round of applause. Her colleagues had decorated her spot at the barre with balloons in the shape of her name, and she had […]
A few years ago, dance teacher Elaine Mannix of Commonwealth Dance Academy in Walpole, Massachusetts, learned a 10-year-old student had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The dancer had just added hip hop and lyrical to her class schedule and would sometimes dance three hours a day, building toward participating in more competitions as she […]
Simply put, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan is a dazzling performer. We couldn’t take our eyes off of her when she danced the lead pas de deux from “Rubies” during an online company performance in October. In Pointe‘s March/April digital cover story, PNB artistic director Peter Boal describes the 23-year-old corps member as having a “go-for-broke presence, […]
When legendary Black ballet dancer Kabby Mitchell III died unexpectedly in 2017, two months before opening his Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center, his friend and business partner Klair Ethridge wasn’t sure she had what it took to carry his legacy. Ethridge had been working with Mitchell to co-found TUPAC and planned to serve as its […]
In a windowless subterranean studio under the New York State Theater, I pulled back an imaginary arrow and let it fly. “Good!” said ballet master Tommy Abbott. “I think you’re ready. Tomorrow you rehearse with Mr. Robbins.” I was slated to play Cupid in Jerome Robbins’ compilation of fairy tales called Mother Goose. It was […]
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. […]