Recently, English National Ballet first artist Precious Adams announced that she will no longer be wearing pink tights. With the support of her artistic director Tamara Rojo, she will instead wear chocolate brown tights (and shoes) that match her flesh tone. It may seem like a simple change, but this could be a watershed moment—one where […]
One inescapable fact of trying to plan for anything during a pandemic is the need for backup plans—many of them. Planning a fall performance season—which usually happens months and sometimes even years in advance—while navigating state reopening guidelines and virus spikes falls somewhere between frustratingly difficult and impossible. To make sense of it, Ginger Farley, […]
From mid-March into early April, dance communities around the world experienced a seismic shift as performance seasons were canceled, training programs were suspended and physical contact outside one’s home was mandated unsafe. As dancers, we are taught to problem solve in real-time, so it came as no surprise when streamed performances and classes began popping […]
For the past few months, the dance world has been holding its collective breath, waiting for New York City Ballet to announce who will take over the helm as artistic director. Though former ballet master in chief Peter Martins retired over a year ago after accusations of sexual harassment and abuse (an internal investigation did […]
Between being a Pacific Northwest Ballet principal, a doula and a mom, you’d think Sarah Ricard Orza wouldn’t have spare time to pick up a book. “It’s always something I’m saying I need to make more time for!” she says. “Growing up, we didn’t have a television, so reading was big in our house. Nowadays, […]
On a sunny July weekend, hundreds of Seattle-area dance fans converged on tiny Vashon Island, a bucolic enclave in Puget Sound about 20 miles from the city. They made the ferry trek to attend the debut performance of the fledgling Seattle Dance Collective. SDC is not a run-of-the-mill contemporary dance company; it’s the brainchild of […]
When George Balanchine’s full-length Don Quixote premiered in 1965, critics and audiences alike viewed the ballet as a failure. Elaborate scenery and costumes framed mawkish mime passages, like one in which the ballerina washed the Don’s feet and dried them with her hair. Its revival in 2005 by Suzanne Farrell, the ballerina on whom it […]
Rehearsal is in full swing, and Leta Biasucci, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s newest principal dancer, finds herself in unfamiliar territory. Biasucci is always game for a challenge, but choreographer Kyle Davis wants her to lift fellow dancer Clara Ruf Maldonado. Repeatedly. While she’s known for her technical prowess, lifting another dancer off the floor is a […]
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.