{"id":20251,"date":"2025-07-06T16:27:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=20251"},"modified":"2025-07-07T22:43:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T22:43:18","slug":"commentary-digital-performance-pnbs-directors-choice-season-closer-reflects-the-evolution-of-american-ballet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/06\/commentary-digital-performance-pnbs-directors-choice-season-closer-reflects-the-evolution-of-american-ballet\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: (Digital Performance) PNB’S DIRECTOR\u2019S CHOICE SEASON CLOSER REFLECTS THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN BALLET"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAY<\/a>|JUNE<\/h2>\n

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PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET :DIRECTOR\u2019S CHOICE: HOW PNB\u2019S SEASON CLOSER REFLECTS THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN BALLET<\/h2>\n

Digital Performance recorded Friday, May 30 at 7:30 PM<\/h3>\n

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By Theresa Ruth Howard<\/h3>\n

Disclaimer:<\/strong> Theresa Ruth Howard has worked closely with Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) for the past 10 years, supporting their efforts around Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Anti-Racism, and Access (IDEA). While this critique\/commentary reviews the company\u2019s programming, Howard offers analysis that may, at times, draw from an intimate knowledge of the organization. This is not to express bias but to provide context and depth to the commentary.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNewton\u2019s Third Law of Motion states: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.\u201d<\/strong>
\nCOVID took a great deal. Yet in the fight to survive, the inherent adaptability of the human species emerged. We adopted new practices: social distancing, masking, and working remotely over Zoom. When lockdowns lifted, dancers and choreographers returned\u2014masked and bubbled\u2014into studios both in person and virtually. Still unable to welcome live audiences, performances were staged in empty theaters, filmed, and presented digitally.<\/p>\n

Pacific Northwest Ballet is one of the companies that maintained this practice, offering a digital subscription to all its programming. Not only has this created a new revenue stream, but it has also expanded access to one of America\u2019s most exciting ballet companies.<\/p>\n

PNB\u2019s 2025 Director\u2019s Choice<\/strong> season closer is a program that physically embodies the company\u2019s deep commitment to confronting and addressing core issues that have historically threatened the relevance\u2014and even the survival\u2014of classical ballet. These include elitism, toxic workplace culture, abuse, lack of diversity, and problematic racial, cultural, or misogynistic themes embedded in the canon.<\/p>\n

To regard this as simply \u201cgood programming\u201d would be reductive. What\u2019s more telling is how<\/em> these programming choices came to be. The curation of this program\u2014and the dancers who bring it to life\u2014is the direct byproduct of a decade-long process of intentional, interrogative evolution. Over this time, PNB has leaned into the generational questions that have shaken classical forms to their core, starting with:
\nWhat are we for? Who are we for? Whom do we serve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since rolling up their sleeves and digging in, PNB has become a reflection of their city, their country, and, in many ways, the world. With humility\u2014stepping down from the pedestal\u2014and by truly listening, they have garnered trust, or at least the benefit of the doubt, within their community. And that community has begun to embrace them. Their audiences are now more colorful and intergenerational. During Nutcracker<\/em>, when Act II divertissements feature corps dancers in soloist roles, crowds select tickets as if it were Wimbledon and support dancers as if it were a sporting event\u2014complete with fan favorites that go beyond the principals.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, PNB has become a destination company\u2014and school\u2014not just because of its artistic excellence, but because it has truly transformed. It now reflects the racial and cultural multiplicity of America and has fostered an organizational culture that centers humanity. That centering is the bedrock of its inclusivity.<\/p>\n

What makes PNB a new standard-bearer in ballet\u2019s ongoing evolution is its unwavering commitment to IDEA\u2014a transformation driven by Artistic Director Peter Boal and Executive Director Ellen Walker. Their leadership is a case study in the adage: Change starts at the top.<\/em><\/p>\n

Consistency is part of PNB\u2019s secret sauce. Ellen Walker\u2014who feels like the heart and conscience of the work\u2014often says, \u201cWe are going to fail, but we will fail forward.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2015, when soloist Kiyon Ross retired, his departure left the company without a single Black dancer. That same year, the organization joined the City of Seattle\u2019s \u201cTurning Commitment into Action\u201d program, which offered equity training for arts and cultural institutions. Two years later, in 2017, PNB joined 19 other major ballet companies in The Equity Project<\/em>, an initiative to increase the presence of Black dancers in ballet, of which I was a designer and facilitator.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Amanda Morgan and Dammiel Cruz were hired\u2014both are now soloists\u2014and Boal\u2019s active recruitment efforts, coupled with holistic, organization-wide training, grew the number of Black-identifying dancers to 10. Meanwhile, Ross remained at PNB, teaching in the PNB School\u2019s DanceChance program, coordinating the Next Step initiative, and steadily rising through the administrative ranks. He is also one of the choreographers featured on this program\u2014and happens to be African American.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Ross became Director of Company Operations, and in 2022, he was appointed Associate Artistic Director. Today, the company is 53% BIPOC.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s about more than racial representation. PNB has become a case study in the effective sublimation of the principles and practices of IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) to support generational shifts in the field\u2014including around gender identity. The emergence and embrace of two nonbinary dancers, Ashton Edwards and Zsilas Michael Hughes, has gone beyond obligatory pronoun use or casting across gender roles. PNB has thoughtfully stretched itself to re-script the gendered language of ballet (e.g., replacing \u201cladies\u201d and \u201cmen\u201d with \u201cpointe\u201d and \u201cflat\u201d dancers), and to address gendered power dynamics by, for example, listing dancers alphabetically in programs rather than defaulting to \u201cladies first.\u201d Even in The Nutcracker<\/em>, the Cavalier has been granted autonomy\u2014no longer simply existing to possess or orbit Sugarplum as \u201cher\u201d Cavalier.<\/p>\n

There is a symbiosis between Boal and Walker that leads with humanity, humility, courage, and an indefatigable dedication to grappling with the complexities of interrogating the very structures that define the identity of an artform built on irreproachable hierarchy\u2014structures that have historically upheld the lack of diversity, gender bias, and a toxic culture where a person’s ability to endure, and perform in toxicity is considered measure of worthiness.<\/p>\n

With the addition of Ross, the leadership triad has gained depth and divergent perspectives. PNB has actively worked to flatten the hierarchy of communication, creating space for more voices to rise and be heard, and cultivating a culture of feedback and psychological safety in administrative and<\/em> artistic space spaces\u2014an essential condition for artists. Informal leadership is encouraged and nurtured.<\/p>\n

It is not perfect, but like ballet itself, PNB understands that it takes training, practice, and correction to build mastery and develop muscle memory. The people of the organization are actively and continuously building an institutional identity that reflects their values\u2014and fosters a shared sense of responsibility, accountability, ownership, and pride in every employee.<\/p>\n

This, along with dynamic dancing, is why PNB has become a destination company.<\/p>\n

If it seems like this prologue is ambling or extraneous to a traditional critique\u2014ordinarily, it would be. However, context matters. The curation of dancers, choreographers, and programming does not happen in a vacuum. There are many ways one can choose to \u201cview\u201d a performance. One can focus strictly on what\u2019s presented on stage: the works, the dancers\u2019 execution, production elements, etc. A strict adherence to those aspects is a valid approach.<\/p>\n

That said, in 2025, such a narrow lens feels incomplete\u2014especially when the world is in a state of existential crisis. When art functions as a reflection, a response, documentation, or the ignition of ideas, it feels appropriate\u2014even necessary\u2014for its scribes to evolve to meet the moment and its expanding demands.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned context is not fluff; it is presented to illustrate that this\u2014and all programming\u2014is the tangible and visible byproduct of accumulated choices.<\/p>\n

Watching the Director\u2019s Choice<\/em> program feels like PNB\u2019s dissertation\u2014a presentation of the work the organization has committed itself to over the past decade. Work that has shaped it into a quintessential expression of:<\/p>\n