Helene

Pacific Northwest Ballet Principal Dancer Lesley Rausch Announces Retirement. 22-year career with PNB will be celebrated at Season Encore Performance, June 11, 2023. Marion Oliver McCaw Hall 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center Seattle, WA 98109 SEATTLE, WA — Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Lesley Rausch has announced that she will be retiring at the end of the 2022-23 season. Lesley joined PNB as a member of the corps de ballet in 2001. She was promoted to soloist in 2007 and principal in 2011. Lesley’s incredible 22-year career will be celebrated at the Season Encore Performance, Sunday, June 11 at McCaw Hall. Tickets to the Season Encore Performance, starting at $37, are available through the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at 301 Mercer Street. “I never imagined 25 years ago, when I attended my first summer course at PNB School, that I would go on to have such a rewarding career with this great company,” said Lesley in her announcement. “I knew that I truly loved PNB and feel immensely fortunate that Kent and Francia took a chance on a very flexible, and somewhat uncoordinated, young dancer. I am beyond grateful for all of the love and commitment they put into nurturing the dancer I would become. I am also extraordinarily appreciative to Peter for the countless and diverse opportunities he has gifted me. You have all helped me to fulfill my dreams in ways I never realized were possible. “I am blessed to have parents who encouraged me to pursue my dream of becoming a professional dancer and helped me move to Seattle at the age of 17 to train at PNB School. Thank you to my mom, dad, and sister who have always been there to cheer me on and help pick me up when things were tough. “I have spent my entire adult life at PNB, which has become in some ways my home and family. I have made lifelong friends and most importantly met and married my soulmate. It has been such a gift to share this beautiful career dancing with Bold [former PNB principal Batkhurel Bold], my biggest cheerleader. I look forward to all the years ahead dancing through life together. “To my colleagues past and present, I have the utmost respect and admiration for you and feel blessed by the incredible partnerships I have shared over the years. To my most consistent partner, [PNB physical therapist] Boyd Bender, thank you. I would never have had the longevity or success in my career without your brilliant dedication to your craft and your unwavering care and support. “There are far too many people to thank for all of the contributions they have made to allow me the success that I have had at PNB. To the audience, subscribers, donors, rehearsal directors, school faculty, administration, PR, marketing, costume, wardrobe, production, stage crew and managers, musicians, and everyone else that makes PNB the incredible place that it is, thank you. It has been the pleasure of my life to share my passion with you all.” "Lesley Rausch has elevated countless ballets with her singular presence, extraordinary talent, and unmatched artistry over an impressive 22-year career with Pacific Northwest Ballet,” said PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal. “As she elects to step away from the stage at the close of our 50th Anniversary season, we know, like everything she does, it will be with the utmost grace. In iconic roles in Swan Lake and Diamonds, Lesley is able to sustain legato phrasing with her endless line, uncanny extension, and exquisite port de bras. Quite simply, Lesley is the ballerina version of a Stradivarius. Equally aligned with the nimble electric violin in Red Angels, Lesley's range as a dancer is extraordinary. The epitome of elegance on stage, she is also a devoted mentor, coach, and champion to her peers in the studio. I can't quite imagine PNB without her, but we will hold our treasured memories dearly, while offering our profound gratitude to this great artist." “When Lesley came to her first PNB School Summer Course in 1997, we immediately picked her out of the crowd,” said PNB Founding Artistic Directors Francia Russell and Kent Stowell. “Visually, her physique looked designed for a career in classical ballet but we soon learned that, in order to tame it, she had many challenges ahead of her. What we did not know was that Lesley had almost unreal will and determination. She also had a temper. When I cast her in a difficult variation for a School Performance she insisted she could not, and would not, do it. I insisted she was going to do it. In the end, that solo brought her to a higher level of technique, as I knew it would, and she was soon in the Company and on her way. “Through all the years we have worked with her, Kent and I have been impressed not only by Lesley’s devotion and seriousness about her work but her lack of seriousness about herself. No high falutin’ prima ballerina airs about this young woman. She is aware of everyone working with her and has been both a great colleague and, as she proceeded to her peak as an artist, mentor, and inspiration for the Company. “Lesley has gone from strength to strength as a dedicated and beloved performer in both the contemporary and classical repertoires. As a dynamic technician she has never lost the loveliness of her vulnerability in many roles. Swan Lake was perhaps the most perfect example: her Odette was heartbreakingly, humanly beautiful and her Odile a creature of fire and ice, and all performed with a clarity of technique that pretended to be easy. Last spring revisiting the ballet one last time with Lesley, was a productive and fulfilling experience we can never forget. Also impossible to forget are her radiant and gently humorous Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, her breathtaking ‘Court of Love’ in Carmina Burana, and her power in In the middle, somewhat elevated. And so many, many more! “Of course Lesley’s most important partner is her husband, Bold. So different in character and background, they have forged a powerful, loving relationship that is a joy to know. Lesley will be missed terribly by everyone at PNB and she will miss dancing for sure. But we have no doubt at all that her life, with Bold, will be as full in the future as the brilliant career she has had with PNB. She leaves a legacy of dedication and perfection to which future dancers will aspire.” In addition to the Season Encore Performance, audiences will have several opportunities to catch Lesley’s performances during the second half of PNB’s 50th Anniversary season: BOUNDLESS (March 17 – 26); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (April 14 – 23); and WORLDS TO COME (June 2 – 11). For ticket and casting information, visit PNB.org. Lesley Rausch is from Columbus, Ohio. She studied with Shir Lee Wu at Columbus Youth Ballet and also at Pacific Northwest Ballet School. She took summer courses at the School of American Ballet, International Dance School at Jackson, Mississippi, and PNB School. Lesley joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 2001. She was promoted to soloist in 2007 and principal in 2011. Lesley has danced leading roles in George Balanchine’s Agon, Apollo, Concerto Barocco, Coppélia, Diamonds, Emeralds, The Four Temperaments, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, La Valse, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prodigal Son, Rubies, Serenade, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and Symphony in C; Peter Boal’s Giselle; Val Caniparoli’s The Bridge and Lambarena; David Dawson’s Empire Noir and A Million Kisses to My Skin; Ulysses Dove’s Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, Red Angels, Serious Pleasures, and Vespers; Nacho Duato’s Jardí Tancat; William Forsythe’s Artifact II, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, New Suite, and One Flat Thing, reproduced; Kiyon Gaines’ ə{SCHWA}; Paul Gibson’s The Piano Dance and Rush; Ronald Hynd’s The Sleeping Beauty; Jiri Kylian’s Forgotten Land and Petite Mort; Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Cendrillon and Roméo et Juliette; Mark Morris’ Pacific; Crystal Pite’s Emergence and Plot Point; Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH, Don Quixote, and Pictures at an Exhibition; Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Fancy Free, Glass Pieces, and Other Dances; Kent Stowell’s Carmina Burana, Cinderella, Nutcracker, and Swan Lake; Twyla Tharp’s Brief Fling, In the Upper Room, Nine Sinatra Songs, Opus 111, and Waterbaby Bagatelles; and Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. She originated leading roles in Caniparoli’s The Seasons, Kyle Davis’ Las Estrellas, Gaines’ Sum Stravinsky, Edwaard Liang’s The Veil Between Worlds, Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements, Susan Stroman’s TAKE FIVE…More or Less, and Price Suddarth’s Signature. Lesley was a finalist in the 1998 Concours International de Danse de Paris. She has performed as a guest artist with Chicago Dancing Festival, Lafayette Ballet Theatre, Nantucket Atheneum Dance Festival, Nevada Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Hawaii. In addition to her performing career, Lesley has been a guest teacher at Ballet Hawaii, Evergreen City Ballet, New American Youth Ballet, and Punahou Dance School. She also is on the faculty of Pacific Northwest Ballet School. Lesley is a Stott Certified Pilates Instructor and a certified instructor in Tai Ji Quan Moving for Better Balance and Madeline Black’s Series One and Two.

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Congratulations to them all

I got my renewal notice in the mail, for next season and the rep revealed so far is: 1. Wartime Elegy (Ratmansky) and The Seasons' Canon (Pite) will be back next season! 2. One Thousand Pieces (first full PNB performance, Cerrudo) 3. Swan Lake (Stowell) 4. (Edited to add] a World Premiere by Danielle Rowe. The Digital Season add-on for subscribers is $30, and partial season and Digital Only packages are being finalized, with the target availability date of mid-March.

It's all on the NYCB site:

A reminder that all info about dancers needs a source. "I think" isn't a source. Either the dancer, company, or another ballet professional has posted or written or spoken about it publicly, or they haven't. If they have, source it, which, for things in the past, can be "They posted to instagram" or "Another dancer posted to Instagram" or "The NYT said" that they were injured, pregnant, guesting, etc. and for current news, link to it or refer to an Instagram story, a Q&A, etc.

That was fantastic! (I could never walk in them, but Florence Clerc had the best shoes.)

Thread for critic reviews of the Peck ballet in The New Yorker can be found in the Writings on Ballet forum here:

Wendy Whelan was my favorite Aurora, too, through the last NYCB performance of SB I saw in 2004.

Hilarion wouldn't be a poor peasant: he's a gameskeeper, and his employer would have been wealthy, which may be one of the reasons he can suss out Albert so easily, as opposed to just being jealous of the shiny new guy. In most other productions I've seen, he brings dead birds, ie, dinner, to Berthe, partly to show that he will be able to feed her daughter. He's not in the fields and subject to an agrarian living. He meets a group of gameskeepers in Act II; I've seen productions where he appears to be bumping into a group of guys he doesn't know. Maybe his coat is shorthand for that, because only the hunting party brings back game. Giselle doesn't have to swallowed up, because by then, she's already passed him onto Bathilde. It makes me think of La Traviata, where Violetta tells Alfredo that when he finds a wife to give his wife Violetta's locket and to tell her that an angel is watching out for them both. In Traviata, there's no one specific, whereas in Giselle, it is Bathilde. I love that his punishment is depicted physically: he's between Giselle and Bathilde, and he has to live out his life in the middle of the great forgiveness sandwich. There have been a number of changes for each revivial, particularly in the mime, between 2011 -> 2014 -> 2023. (I'm not sure if there were intermediate/other changes slated for 2020, when the revival was cancelled when theaters closed.)

On the Boards is sponsoring Kidd Pivot in Crystal Pite's Revizor for one performance at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on 1 March at 7:30pm: https://www.ontheboards.org/performances/kidd-pivot-revisor I saw this in Vancouver pre-pandemic, and I was blown away. I don't know how much Pite has changed it since then, but I can't imagine it being any less amazing.

Here's a link to the Curry (and Hamill and Bezic and Cranston) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwY93Z7dpzE

It's a shame that the upper level students aren't performing in the corps. PNB isn't the only company where, by the time they've spent their last two years at the highest level that they've been in multiple ballets, supplementing the apprentices and corps members in the big corps ballets. Here it's Nutcracker Snow and Flowers, Sleeping Beauty and/or Swan Lake, Giselle when it's played, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cinderella, Coppelia, Pite's two big works among them. There may have been some other ballets with large corps that haven't been performed in a while that used students in the corps, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch. That stage experience ia invaluable, and that's not even counting the Spring story ballet matinees (ex: Snow White) and the school shows, which include Next Step, in which company members choreograph on them. I think the Garland Dance counts, and from what I've been reading here over the years, Peter Martins thought enough of his full-lengths, particularly Swan Lake, which made it to PBS as a representation of the company to the rest of the country, and Romeo + Juliet to be programmed enough, even going head-to-head with ABT.

PNB works the same way for the children's roles in almost all of the same ballets, although I don't think PNB ever did Harlequinade. Most of the children in those ballets, all of whom are local, do not go on to the most advanced levels, although some do and a few of those do make the leap to the Professional Division (last two years). There have been more local children who've started early in the school and made it into the company (or other companies) through Dance Chance and the Francia Russell Center on the Eastside, but for a long time, it was similar to NYCB, where Peter Boal, Judith Fugate, Michael Byars, and a few others did start at SAB as young(er) children, whereas most of the local dancers, like Calegari, didn't join SAB until they were teenagers. Merrill Ashley wrote in her book that she performed the first kid Candy Cane in at 13 or 14, when her parents allowed her to attend SAB, but she wasn't yet tall, and she fit into the costume. I realize that isn't a pointe role, and I was thinking specifically of the Tea sidekicks. I thought the Nutcracker corps was supplemented by students in the advanced classes, but I was corrected earlier in the thread. And, of course, Martins wouldn't cast based on an 11- or 12-year-old unless they were extremely talented, but there were 14- and15- and 16- and 17- and 18-year olds that were in the advanced classes at SAB in December 2017 that are dancing at NYCB now as 19-23-year olds. They would surely be up for parts in The Sleeping Beauty, and he'd be aware of them, especially as he attended at least two performances recently. Peter Boal hadn't taught 1/3 of PNB that recently either when he became AD, but he did remember them.

I could be mis-remembering, and I don't have the full programs anymore, but I thought the two women in Tea, who dance en pointe, were students, at least when I saw the company regularly, yegads, nearly 30 years ago at this point! In any case, Martins attended at least two performances this year: Ramasar's and Hyltin's farewells, and I'm sure he had his eyes open for those former students. It's only been four years.

Balanchine only appeared in SAB classes a few times a year -- dancers have written about how they would wear their best clothes, do their make-up carefully, choose the right earrings, wear perfume, etc. when they heard he was coming -- and, he too, made quick decisions. If Martins disagreed with Kay Mazzo about her suggestions, he'd observed enough to form that opinion, for better or worse. My apologies for not knowing the SAB terminology for the way levels are described at SAB. So that means SAB students are no longer in The Nutcracker, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Coppelia, The Sleeping Beauty, and Harliquenade? (I don't know the new works, and those are the ones I remember with young dancers.) Where do they get the children/teens from if not from the school?

Martins knew the corps members who were Professional Division students at SAB, both from classes and when they dance corps roles in the main company for productions like Nutcracker. Peter Boal had taught 1/3 of the dancers at Pacific Northwest Ballet when he became AD, because he had taught them at SAB. He knew their dancing very well.

An announcement: https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Laura-Morera-Retires-as-a-Principal-Dancer-After-27-Years-20230209

It would depend on what the contract says. Martins could always defer to staff for any casting he controls contractually, but he doesn't have to. Francia Russell once said in a Q&A in Seattle, when discussing performing Symphony in C, for which John Taras had lifetime rights from the original beneficiary (Betty Cage?). John Taras was insisting on an older version that NYCB hadn't been performing. According to Russell, Martins threatened to mothball Symphony in C unless they could perform the version they were used to. (Different companies performing different versions were well documented as being blessed by Balanchine by Maria Tallchief and Russell, among others, the most obvious being that companies still perform Apollo with the original opening and staircase ending, instead of the AT&T logo.) Taras relented for NYCB, and Russell said he died before PNB performed it, so the company could do a different version. Unless there is a contractual obligation to perform Martins' Sleeping Beauty within a specific timeframe, there's no reason why NYCB couldn't mothball it. Symphony in C is more valuable to NYCB than Sleeping Beauty, and he was willing to sacrifice rather than letting someone else control things.

The stream with the Opening Night cast will be available this Thursday, February 16 through Mondy, February 21 (11:59 PST). Tickets are available here: https://order.pnb.org/23-digital/giselle They are $35+tax.

From Coco Lavine's Instagram, a short rehearsal clip from "Like Water for Chocolate": https://www.instagram.com/p/Con9P2vD_j3/

Instagram Stories time out/disappear after 24 hours. Information posted here with their content aren't necessarily still up.

I'll post more later, but there are two things I want to mention now, having seen the second of two performances from the back half of the Second Tier boxes: 1. The corps was magnificent! Every pattern, transition, and spacing was clear and disciplined while remaining natural. In both acts. There aren't enough for them and the people rehearsing them. 2. Madison Rayn Abeo has every reason right now to be over the moon.

Kyra Nichols danced Aurora. I'm not sure how tall Kistler and Whelan are.

Alternately, they may have seen Kowrowski following in the tradition of Merrill Ashley. (Who was pretty scary...)