It isn’t often that you call a 26 year old a veteran, but that description fits Whim W’Him company member Jacob Beasley to a tee.

Beasley is starting his fourth season with the Seattle contemporary dance company, which makes him the most seasoned of the company’s seven members.

Beasley started dance lessons at the relatively old age of 12, first taking hip-hop classes, which he added to a full plate that already included piano lessons and baseball practice.

“It was a crazy schedule of going to one dance class, then my dad driving me to baseball practice then back to another dance class,” Beasley remembers.

Eventually Beasley dropped everything except dance, specifically ballet.

By 2016, at the age of 16, Beasley was enrolled full-time in Houston Ballet’s professional training program. He went on from there to dance with BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, then to Ballet Idaho in Boise.

But Beasley had developed another passion — contemporary dance — that he filled first by dancing with a project-based company called LED. He moved on to the NW Dance Project in Portland. And that’s where he came upon a post on Instagram advertising auditions for Whim W’Him.

“I had moments during my time in Houston and BalletMet where I had contemporary opportunities and people could see me really shine,” he recalls.

He put together a resume and threw his hat into the ring.

It was Beasley’s combination of skills that caught Whim W’Him founder and artistic director Olivier Wever’s eye.

“He does not reject his classical training but is willing to interrogate and dismantle it,” Wevers explains. “That combination of discipline, technical strength and curiosity is a big part of what makes him such an interesting artist.”

Wevers prides himself on working with a company of dancers who can perform in unison or execute solos or duets, depending on what the choreographers bring their way. The widely diverse premieres are often created with the dancers’ participation, and demand both high energy and attention to specifics. Beasley admits that neither he nor his colleagues nail it every time.

“We’re in the dressing room saying, ‘That’s not my best work if I’m being honest.’ But that’s okay. We’re literally stripping down our costumes and putting an entirely new personality on.”

And the show goes on. That collective commitment to quality is what Beasley values most.

This season, for the first time in its 17-year history, Beasley and the entire company return to Whim W’Him en masse. They’re in the midst of rehearsing their season-opening show, the 12^th annual Choreographic Shindig, featuring three premieres by choreographers selected by the dancers. It opens Friday, September 11, at Seattle’s Erickson Theatre. Whim W’Him’s full season continues in January and May 2027 with programs at the Cornish Playhouse.

Wow.

That was my first reaction after I sped through all six episodes in Netflix’s new adaptation of the 1901 Australian novel My Brilliant Career.

The semi-autobiographical book by Miles Franklin follows Sybylla Melvyn’s journey from her impoverished home to a semi-permanent stay at her grandmother’s horse ranch, where Sybylla is expected to find a husband who can rescue her family from their growing debt.

That’s all well and good except for the fact that Sybylla doesn’t really want to marry anyone; she wants more than anything to pursue a career as a writer. I don’t see why marriage precludes a literary life but I’m sure things were different on the cusp of the 20^th century.

I have distant memories of seeing a 1979 film adaptation of Franklin’s book starring a young Judy Davis opposite Sam Neill, but I didn’t recall much of the plot. By contrast, the Netflix mini-series was incandescent.

It’s hard to tear your eyes from Australian actor Philippa Easton’s Sybylla, but Christopher Chung, Kate Mulvaney and the imperious/imperial Anna Chancellor as Granny Bossier give Easton a close race.

A lot has been written about how the television series boasts a contemporary soundtrack and colorblind casting, ala Shonda Rimes’ Bridgerton. I suppose you could loosely lump the two historical productions together. But where Bridgerton feels conscious of its casting choices, My Brilliant Career surprises with every plot twist and I hesitate to lay out any of the scenarios. You really should watch it yourself. Not every story point is fully explained but the series does a damn fine job of most and it’s hard to imagine this tale was published more than a century ago, at the height of the suffragist movement.

I now want to read Franklin’s book, written when she was just a teenager. I wonder about Sybylla’s observations about aborigines and race, about Sybylla and her wealthy relatives, and most of all about a woman’s role in turn of the 20^th century Australia. Or any other Western country. Were these part of the original text or are they contemporary embellishments? Whichever, they feel fresh and of the moment.

As we watch Pete Hegseth strip honors from women and servicemembers of color, as we endure deliberate historical whitewashing and the push to mutilate women’s bodies and faces in the name of attractiveness, the new version of My Brilliant Career couldn’t have come at a better time.

I love how timely the story is and -- spoiler alert of sorts --I loved how Sybylla Melvyn ends up doing things her way. To mangle Martin Luther King Jr., may the pendulum arc towards justice.

I asked for binge-streaming recommendations and, boy, did you come through!

Thanks everyone!

A number of you suggested Ride or Die with Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham, along with a perfectly cast Bill Nighy as the assassin-master. Nighy aside, this series is about the characters played by Waddingham and Spencer. Play the roles they do with chemistry together up the wazoo.

So much has been written about the fact that we rarely get to enjoy stories that feature middle-aged women in starring roles, let alone as action heroes. I’m going to echo that chorus. The real pleasure of Ride or Die is the opportunity to watch two mature women kick butt.

I’m not revealing any spoilers when I tell you that Hannah Waddingham portrays one of Nighy’s handpicked assassins. She’s violated one of his strictest rules by befriending Octavia Spencer’s character Debbie.

The setup reminds me a bit of the 2015 movie Spy with Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart, plus Jason Statham, Jude Law and Rose Byrne. Except for the fact that Ride or Die takes itself a bit more seriously, whereas Spy is just awesome fun. That’s not to say Ride or Die isn’t enjoyable, it’s just not a barrel of laughs.

And, if I could take a moment to complain about Amazon’s fiesta of ads! Seriously, why does one of the world’s richest men need to pack endless minutes of advertising into regular program interruptions? We have the option of going ad-free, for an additional monthly fee. But we already pay to stream Prime programming! Yeah, I know, I don’t have much pity either for my first world problem.

Back to the show.

When not distracted by the ads, Ride or Die captured my attention and served as a welcome reminder of our essential humanity. Waddingham’s Judith has a secret heart that Nighy’s dictum against forming an emotional attachment can’t erase. In fact, he’s formed his own bond with Judith. Lots of bonds are formed and one leads directly to the villain. Friendship is precious in Ride or Die, unless that friendship isn’t welcome.

You won’t be shocked to learn this show will have a second season, although I assume with a different underlying premise. In its first iteration, Spencer’s Debbie doesn’t know, at first, what Waddingham’s Judith does for a living. Unless the producer/stars dwell on a recap, that will be old news by season two. And this first season ends just as our heroes are being targeted by a new battalion of potential assassins.

So, all in all, I liked Ride or Die well enough, particularly watching a couple of women in their prime kick butt. That said, I yearn to find a streaming copy of Spy. Melissa McCarthy’s Susan Cooper was a hero for the ages and I’d love to spend a couple more hours with her.

Let me know how to find her!

Almost nine months ago one of my brothers and I were waiting for my mother to die.

That sounds harsher than I mean it; she had feeding and water tubes plus a fentanyl drip, but she wasn’t conscious and wasn’t likely to regain clear thinking. Our other brother had given the ok to remove the tubes, as per her advance directive. So we waited.

My youngest brother tried to distract me with a cavalcade of streaming series, but either the programs were too serious or required too much of my attention. At last he brought up Ted Lasso, a much-acclaimed series that I’d never seen.

I was captivated at first by the brevity of its episodes; at a half hour each they were perfect for my brain. Eventually I was enamored by its earnest, feel-good message. I rooted for bumbling Ted and his pink shortbread boxes, loved Rebecca’s fight for independence and Keeley’s hyperactive competence.

Ted Lasso had a three-season arc and when the series wrapped up, I regretted its end — but a wrap was a wrap.

Until this week, when Ted and the gang rose from the televised dead for episode one of season 4.

Many fans vacillate between joy and casting a leery eye on the prospect of reviving this beloved show but so far — one episode in — the show’s creators seem to be handling the revival with sensitivity. We pick up the action in Kansas City, Missouri, where Ted, his ex-wife and now-teenaged son are living.

We are reacquainted with Rebecca, Keeley and Higgins first by their shoes and next by their attempts to get Ted to coach a women’s soccer club. It’s no secret he takes the job, but unlike the first three seasons, I won’t be binging this series because Apple TV is doling it out in weekly microdoses.

I watched the first three Ted Lasso seasons in mourning for my mother, and I will always associate this show with loss and grief. But it’s also a relief; Ted is a savant of sorts who finds wisdom in seemingly simple sayings. It’s his simplicity that lends to his leadership skills and puts the spotlight on aspirations of greatness. I’ve read harsh critiques of season 4 but I haven’t seen enough episodes to levy any judgement.

As I non-binge Ted Lasso’s fourth season, I honor my mother’s memory. If not for her death I never would have discovered this seemingly simple show. As I anticipate each episode’s unfurling I celebrate the opportunity to dip back into Lasso’s world. Season 4 may not deliver what every critic demands but for now it’s a welcome respite from this country’s political quagmire.

When I whined last week about not getting out to any performances this month, my wise copy editor advised me to write about my binge-watching. Great idea!

Before I dive in, I want to thank readers for your many viewing suggestions. I would LOVE to stream Ride or Die, but don’t have Amazon Prime, thanks to a misguided attempt to boycott Jeff Bezos. (He’s literally everywhere.) Know that I have squirreled away the other titles! I have a lot of time on my hands and I’m not all that picky when it comes to streaming shows, although I draw the line at horror. I watch the news to get my fill of the apocalypse.

I wanted to talk this week about two series that got me thinking once again about body-shaming, America’s knee-jerk responses to the plethora of shapes and sizes we come in and what it really means to love yourself.

This got kickstarted by the return of Michelle Buteau’s fabulous limited series Survival of the Thickest.

I had seen the previous two seasons a couple of years ago. In short, Buteau plays Mavis Beaumont, a plus-size aspiring fashion designer, who struggles with love for her paramour, Luca, for her best friend, Khalil, and for herself. Mavis wants it all: a successful career, a truth-telling relationship with her lover, and the affirming love of her chosen family. Oh, and a baby.

I could completely relate to almost everything, especially the urge to procreate.

I survived five miscarriages before I welcomed my son into the world more than 30 years ago. Buteau’s scenes post-miscarriage were spot-on. Wanda Sykes as the fertility doctor was a welcome — albeit unrealistic — presence. Eventually she assures Buteau’s Mavis that there are many paths to parenthood.

Buteau’s world is filled with drugs, sex, rock and roll, drag queens and love. Does Mavis fuck up? Why yes, she does. But I love how she tries to remain true to her principles, and that includes outrageous fashion choices that embrace rather than camouflage her body. I love Buteau’s alternate view of a universe that doesn’t sort fat from thin but rather celebrates our uniqueness. And despite the challenges, this series has a happy ending. I can’t deny the appeal of a happy fantasy conclusion, but I wanted to linger a little longer in Mavis’ world.

By contrast, Annie Easton’s reality is so painful that sometimes you just want to whack her upside the head and turn off your television.

Easton is the protagonist of Shrill, based on the memoir by Seattle’s own Lindy West, embodied by Aidy Bryant. Shrill the television series debuted on Hulu in 2019. I may be the last person to watch the entire series, which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Shrill opens with Annie’s clueless lover making her leave his house via the back door so his housemates don’t get a glimpse of his fat girlfriend. I haven’t finished streaming it yet, but unlike Buteau’s Mavis Beaumont, Bryant’s Annie Easton wants to be fat positive but struggles continually with self-acceptance.

Mind you, this is a drama/comedy, but as a viewer who’s faced fat-shaming my entire life, some of the Shrill scenes cut so close to the bone that I had to put the stream on pause.

This is West’s brilliance at finding the universal in a personal story, that she and this program all too accurately portray what it means to walk through the world as a plus-size woman, but I prefer Michelle Buteau’s take-no-prisoners Mavis to Bryant’s struggling Easton. Mavis’ love-me-as-I-am approach is aspirational and inspirational.

What does it mean to fully accept — and love — the body you have? Why does self-acceptance take so much work? What happens when you can’t summon the love?

Okay, enough philosophizing! These are only streaming shows, meant as entertainment, not to answer life’s burning questions. But as I’m stuck at home right now, I will use them to re-examine my existence. I don’t think I’ll find any answers, but I sure do aspire to Mavis-ing my life

It’s been a rough few years.

I had a total knee replacement in 2023, then experienced a raft of small strokes and was diagnosed with a meningioma, a tumor on my brain but not in it. The “best” type of brain tumor, according to one emergency room doctor.

Now I’m rehabbing a broken left humerus, which has left me incapacitated. Oh, and my 94-year-old mother died in late December.

I’m having to remind myself that all of this, too, shall pass — but let me whine for just a moment.

While everyone is out enjoying summer, I am binging television series on my streaming services and waiting for library books to come off what seem like endless holds. Before the broken arm I was planning an open water swim and enjoying a Zoom Pilates class, plus regular indoor rowing sessions. And I was relearning how to knit, one of the casualties of the strokes.

Now, I am watching Netflix.

Despite my whining, I am mostly hopeful. Four weeks of a swollen, discolored hand that resembled Mickey Mouse’s gloved digits is finally starting to look almost normal. And while the pain persists, I can control it for the most part. But dang, it’s a long haul.

One fellow Facebook user posted a wise saying from the Dalai Lama, something to the effect that slowing down allows us to appreciate our surroundings, to value every occurrence.

I aspire to that appreciation, but when I wake to almost daily sunshine and fresh breezes, I long to be outdoors, not binge-watching Michelle Buteau’s Survival of the Thickest. (Although I gotta give it up to Buteau’s alter ego, Mavis).

I am grateful to my friends who do everything from grocery shopping to opening cat food cans. And so thankful to my brothers, who designated me to receive the proceeds from my late mother’s estate. That sounds grander than it was, but the money has allowed me to hire a temporary home caregiver.

My Achilles’ heel is slowing down, to give myself the time I need to really heal. I fear I won’t ramp up again, that I’ll wallow in the societal expectations for a 72-year-old. Not swimming and rowing and walking up to the Maple Leaf Reservoir. I have to believe in the power of doing nothing, at least for the next month or so.

So I guess I’ll heed the Dalai Lama, looking for joy in the everyday occurrences around me and learning, once again, to take stock of my good fortune.

I couldn’t have a better companion than Mavis Beaumont! And Kate Wyler and Rebecca Welton and Emma Harte, etc., etc. Don’t recognize those names? You’re more than welcome to join me in binge-world.

P.S. If you’ve got any binge suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. I have another two months of idleness

Now, at almost 79 years old, the woman who literally wrote the book about dance and brain development is stepping away from heading up a ground-breaking teachers’ training program.

Read my story that first appeared in the Seattle Times.

I fell off a bench last weekend at Green Lake. It was a freak accident while walking with my son, who had the great presence of mind to call 911 immediately. Apparently my arm twisted behind my back as I lay sprawled on the grass.

Yes, it was nasty break, a spiral humerus fracture in my left arm, but that’s not what I want to talk about.

It’s been a week but still front of mind are three women — all strangers — who must have seen my fall and scurried off the busy Green Lake walking path to my aid. I’m pretty certain at least two of them were nurses who knelt in the grass, held my good hand and murmured about my bravery.

I don’t think bravery staunched my tears so much as shock, which delayed the inevitable flood of pain. That and my mother’s lifelong admonition to be a good girl. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t talk. I even tried to joke with the EMT team who slashed a beloved hoodie off my body.

An aside — the EMTs in Seattle never fail to amaze me, as do the trauma nurses and doctors at Harborview Medical Center. We are truly lucky here. Don’t believe the current leadership of this nation; quality public health care for all is a right, not a privilege.

My son amazes me with his grace under pressure. I am so proud of the caring man he has become.

In fact, my friends and family are truly wonderful. But I am still filled with gratitude for three strangers who put aside their own plans for a time to sit with me. They reminded me once again of inherent human kindness, and reinforced this Pollyanna’s conviction that love is really what makes life worth living.

Keep the Faith, baby!

The other day when I was in the midst of my new summertime habit — World Cup fan scrolling — I ran across a social media post extolling the joys of the music, dancing and Viking rowing that have inundated both the internet and the host cities across North America.

I’m paraphrasing here, because I didn’t have the wits to write down the exact wording, but the woman online was lamenting the fact that governments seem to embroil themselves in wars while their populace seem happy to join opposing teams and fans in song and dance. Couldn’t we settle our differences in a more amicable fashion? How about a giant sing-along, she proposed.

Oh, would that it was so!

As a proud baby boomer, I was raised on advocacy for a world governed by peace, love and understanding, not nasty name-calling and macho chest-beating. I truly find today’s America, ruled by malevolence, division and violence, repulsive. Sing-alongs are fine by me.

I am primed for some joy. The other Washington seems mired in failed attempts to anoint a spoiled, inept old man as monarch. The nation’s capital is littered with the detritus of his vain pursuits at self-glorification.

After seeing videos of Norwegians in Oslo, New York’s Times Square, hospital corridors and soccer stadiums assume their positions in the fictitious Viking barges and start to row, I wanted to join in. We’re a Norwegian outpost; just visit Ballard on Syttende Mai. That’s Constitution Day in Norway, by the way. Joy wherever we can find it could help blot out the maniac in the White House. I am starved for hope, a close relation to joy. I want the country of “Yes we can” as opposed to “They’re eating the pets.”

More joy via the World Cup: watching Boston police dancing with Cape Verde team fans, who’ve moved in to replace those bagpipe wielding, kilt-wearing Scots. Love them too, BTW. But I’m expanding my horizons. I saw a lovely video clip of Curaçao’s king and queen dancing in their team’s locker room, which led me to wonder why the Curaçao royals were white when their tiny country’s team members all seemed to be people of color. I will do more research into colonial power but for now I will revel in witnessing everyone’s joy as they danced together.

And I finally looked up Bafana Bafana after seeing so many wonderful videos of fans dancing and singing. Turns out it’s the nickname for the South African men’s team. You probably knew that, but it’s all new to me. I’m still not a soccer convert, although I love Ted Lasso. My personal World Cup would be based on which fans had the most addictive cultural celebrations. A giant line dance, anybody?

I had no doubt that Seattle (which spent two weeks under rare blue skies and high temperatures at the start of this World Cup) would enchant the international visitors who marched from our new waterfront park along the eastern shores of Elliott Bay into historic Pioneer Square where USA fans set off seismic activity in support of their team’s victory over Australia. My social media feeds were filled with besotted love letters to this remote city in the Northwest corner of the country. (Fans, we love having you visit, but don’t move here. Trust me, you will hate November’s wet, windy darkness.)

Egypt and Iran descend on Seattle as I write this post. They, two countries with anti-gay laws, will play in the unofficial Pride Match, celebrating our sizable LGBTQ+ population. This past weekend was Pride weekend here, honoring the anniversary of New York’s Stonewall Uprising and sparking the official beginning of this country’s Gay Rights movement. Turns out the two teams ended their match in a tie (what you soccer fans call a draw) and most of the protests involved Iranian-Americans who want the Islamic Republic overturned.

I haven’t paid much attention to the soccer side of this World Cup. I am imagining it as the sporting version of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where everyone descends on Ashland, Oregon for one reason: to see great plays. It’s super fun to be around so many theater aficionados, so I would guess people who love soccer feel that same way about the World Cup.

But I don’t think I have to love soccer to yearn to march down the streets with the bagpiping Scots, or scull with the huge fleets of Norwegians. Or dance with the Ecuadorians or Cape Verdeans. Somebody posted a thread about how the fans have brought joy and whimsy back to a country that has become polarized. I thank you all for reminding us what it means to love life, and to appreciate the world’s cultural richness in all its diversity.

And above all, thank you visitors for reminding me of what’s really important in this world — love, culture and friendship. You’ve revived my boomer-era faith in humanity. Yes we can, indeed.

Last week I was listening to an interview with the acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg. He spoke about many things, but what particularly caught my ear was him pointing out the obvious: Watching a movie on a big screen surrounded by other humans was totally different from streaming a film on your laptop or television set. The people in the room with us make a difference.

Post-pandemic I haven’t seen a lot of movies in theaters, but I have attended live performances. And if, like me, you live in a World Cup host city, you can’t escape the barrage of news stories about fans who gather together to watch soccer matches in bars, on a barge, at screens set up at venues large and small. Oh, and 67 thousand people turned out to watch the U.S. men’s team beat Australia at the wonderfully renamed Seattle Stadium. (I know it reverts to Lumen Field when the big hoo-ha is over, but Lumen take note how happy we are not to have your corporate branding, even temporarily!)

Okay, I confess that I have no affinity for soccer. I did try playing back in the dark ages of my teen years, when a group of Australian and Mexican soccer fans were in residence at my summer camp. It served as my intro to the sport. (In those days, the Detroit suburbs were definitely not a soccer hotbed.) I haven’t paid it much attention since then.

So much running! So much sweat! But I’ve been loving the legions of aficionados who’ve descended on Seattle to cheer on their favorite teams. And I don’t watch World Cup games online; I savor videos of their die-hard fans. I love that the Norwegians appear in large hordes to simulate rowing those Viking barges.

Team Egypt’s cheering squad wore the kind of headdresses you’d see on posters advertising King Tut’s tomb. And the Scots with their kilts and bagpipes at Boston’s Fenway Park serenading the Red Sox and guzzling beer with great joy. And raising money for local charities? That’s something Americans should emulate.

Fans fill our streets as they march together to watch a match, singing, accompanied by drum lines and happiness and yes, joy. Even New Yorkers, not well-known for affability, celebrated the NBA victory of their beloved Knickerbockers with song, dance and good will to their fellow urbanites.

This all takes me back to Spielberg. And to the communal joy we crave and celebrate with the most basic of art forms: dancing and singing with one another.

Our prehistoric ancestors didn’t make movies, but they did share stories around a campfire, or an outdoor amphitheater. Or maybe a meal. And they danced and sang those stories to one another, eventually developing the skills to preserve them in writing.

Sorrow and happiness are amplified when we share them. Laughter is contagious. (So is yawning according to the research results I’ve read.) I’ve seen the power of celebrating great artists at a symphony concert, or a gathering at one of my city’s fine outdoor stages. And you only have to check out the video recording of Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Common, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Vedder serenading Barack and Michelle Obama, three other former U.S. presidents and invited guests at the opening of Chicago’s Barack Obama Presidential Center on June 18. Art is where it’s at baby!

Maybe some prefer to celebrate auspicious occasions with bloodlust fights; think of jousting or Roman gladiatorial encounters. I believe art is a far more lasting tribute, whether it’s Shakespeare or Homer, the primal beats of a drum line, or the amazing American Sign Language interpreters keeping pace with Common’s fast rap in Chicago.

To me the real beauty of soccer — the world’s “beautiful sport”— lies in the fan fervor. The fact that we get to enjoy the Norwegians clad in horned helmets, like Wagnerian Valkyries. Or residents of the Congo dancing through the airport to a catchy tune they unveiled just for the World Cup. Or Eddie Vedder’s song written with and for a young group of musicians to honor the new Obama Center.

I don’t think I will like soccer — fútbol — any better after the World Cup ends. But I have been so uplifted by people’s eagerness to gather with friends, family and complete strangers to reclaim our status as social animals who yearn to share their emotions with one another.

The pandemic isolation was difficult and many of us are still leery about big crowds and germs, worsened by the decimation of our long-held programs designed to protect public health. Many of us remember how we sequestered ourselves in the name of safety. And now we yearn for both the physical and emotional togetherness that were hard to come by in those COVID years.

There’s a joy in community, in watching a movie with a hundred other people in a darkened theater, or celebrating a basketball win with a giant impromptu street dance, or just taking part in a moment of shared humanity.

I find my moments at live performances, but I revel in the celebration of our universal human experiences on the streets of World Cup host cities, or the streets of New York in the wake of a basketball championship. People who watched clips of the June 18 Obama Center ceremony with its cast of A-list stars say they were moved to tears, even if their access point was social media.

In this chaotic era many of us yearn for the return to a time of possibility — at least the hope of a brighter future — one that allows us to dream beyond greed and grift, fistfights and verbal denigrations. When people come together to celebrate, to tell stories, to represent in the streets, onscreen or on stages, we all remember the audacity of hope. Yes we can.

The COVID pandemic might seem like ancient history to many people. Others still have vivid memories of being confined to their homes, shut away from social gatherings or in-person workplaces. And, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. When your life circumstances demand change, many of us answer that demand. We made the proverbial pandemic pivots.

I know this firsthand; I had plans to move to New York City for grad school in the fall of 2020. Instead, I made a podcast with a revered colleague and began a freelance print career. Terrel Lefferts started a mini-publishing empire, transforming herself from in-person dance teacher into the creator of Once Upon a Dance, a series of books for children of all ages.

Lefferts’ newest publication is called A Tail of Learning: Kittina Ballerina and the Not-So-PURRfect Pirouettes, due out in early July. It’s a story about a dance teacher who needs some instruction herself. As it says on the back of the book, “Mastery takes practice and a whole lot of heart.” I say ‘Nothing worth doing comes easy.’

Lefferts has characters of all species and genders, but her top priority is writing books that put females front and center. “I want to counter what these girls are going to see if they grow up in the ballet world, these stories where the prince saves the princess or she dies of a broken heart.” Lefferts wants to create stories about strong girls and women who are the heroes of their own adventures. Seems like a no-brainer but looking at the world from a female perspective still isn’t as common as we’d like it to be.

It’s also important to Lefferts that she portrays dance as an activity that anybody can participate in, rather than reserving it for a particular subset of people who are deemed to have a special talent. Lefferts truly believes that everyone who wants to should dance.

“They may not be perfect,” Lefferts says, “but they can still get great benefit from moving.”

In her latest Kittina book, part of Lefferts’ First Dance Experiences series, the illustrations by Stella Maris are augmented by dance-along instructions on every page that feature Lefferts’ daughter, now a professional dancer with Ballet Idaho. The mother-daughter duo started the Once Upon a Dance project at the beginning of the COVID pandemic while the younger Lefferts was a student with Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Professional Division and living with her parents. Neither of them were able to be in a live group setting, so both dance teacher and student had the time to throw themselves into a book series.

Maris’ drawings are the center of the story. Young readers are invited to try out the illustrated movements they read about. The not-so-perfect pirouettes and other steps are illustrated by photos of Lefferts’ daughter. In some of Lefferts’ other books aimed at older dance students, she dives into more serious subject matters. Kittina Ballerina and her students are part of a series for very young people, aged 3-7.

Although Lefferts’ daughter did become a professional ballerina, the author quit dance cold turkey when she started college. She calls it one of her big regrets.

“I tell everyone you can still find a way to have dance in your life, even if it’s only one class a week.” She calls her books a type of choreography, her own way to keep dance a vital part of her life. She’s most interested in engaging kids with movement and dance wherever they might find it.

“My hope is that some children find their way to a dance studio after checking out a book,” she says. “More, more dance!”

You can find out more about A Tail of Learning: Kittina Ballerina and the Not-So-PURRfect Pirouettes and Terrel Lefferts’ 40 other titles at OnceUponADance.com.

You may know me as a ballet fan. I’m one of those people you might see at the annual school shows, or more than once at every season production. I am most definitely NOT a dancer but I will paraphrase a statement attributed to Orson Welles:

“I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Well, I don’t have any formal dance training but I do know what I like, and when I look back on ballets I’ve seen, certain things stick in my mind. They’re random but first and foremost, the ballets I love have the power to take me on a journey. That’s something I prize in any art form. Sometimes it’s present in a single artwork, and sometimes it’s the accumulation of years of experience.

At the end of each artistic season at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) the powers that be produce a one-time-only show called Season Encore. The intent, in theory, is twofold. As the name implies, the evening is supposed to look back at the season. But depending on that particular season, the performance is also intended to honor dancers who are leaving their stage careers at PNB.

This year PNB honored a trifecta of longtime company members. Corps de ballet dancer Ryan Cardea, who departs after 17 seasons and a legion of featured appearances as everything from an acolyte in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette to a Goonie in George Balanchine’s Prodigal Son. Cardea has also been a standout comedic performer in ballets like Coppélia and more recently in Giselle’s enchanted forest of Wilis.

Cardea’s long career was acknowledged in the 2026 Season Encore but overshadowed by the departures of two principal dancers: Elizabeth Murphy and Lucien Postlewaite.

At 42, Postlewaite has been PNB’s senior dancer and also the last one to be hired by Founding Artistic Directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, so this particular Season Encore also marked the end of an era.

I’ve attended this annual ritual nearly every year for almost two decades, mostly to pay my respects to the company and to the retiring dancers in particular. PNB’s artistic seasons are long and by this time in June it’s not uncommon to see the company ranks depleted by injury. But that isn’t the main reason that this year’s extravaganza seemed different to me. It was less a look back at PNB and its season and more about the two retiring principal dancers.

Corps member Cardea performed in George Balanchine’s Rubies to open the night. Rubies is a sprightly 1967 ballet that PNB performed this season as part of Balanchine’s plotless three-part ballet Jewels. Angelica Generosa and Jonathan Batista, along with Ashton Edwards, were featured in the leading roles. Cardea danced a sturdy part of the corps although it wasn’t his flashiest work.

The rest of the program was mostly about Murphy and Postlewaite, dancing in alternating ballets. Interestingly, they didn’t dance together, and even more interesting to me was that some of the excerpts we saw were super short. Maybe too short.

Highlights included Murphy making her debut in Jessica Lang’s profound The Calling. Murphy was excellent but so is this four-minute gem. It was also wonderful to see her perform with the most excellent Christopher D’Ariano in Cinderella and one of my favorite ballets on the program, Christopher Wheeldon’s stunning This Bitter Earth which will appear officially next season. The Calling was the sole Lang choreography on the bill, likely because PNB had just presented an all Lang program.

I usually love Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump, particularly the poignant pas de deux that Murphy dances with Dylan Wald at the end. Unfortunately, we only got to see an excerpt of this dance . Perhaps because it was only an excerpt it took me some time to get into a Cerrudo zeitgeist. With so much material on the program, Little mortal jump didn’t hit me with its usual deep emotional whammy. Instead, I will hold onto my memory of Murphy and D’Ariano, wearing subtle gray costumes in Wheeldon’s tender duet.

Postlewaite clearly reveled in the audience’s love for him and his artistry. The program ended with the final act of Swan Lake, with Leta Biasucci as Postlewaite’s swan. She’s gorgeous and he was a magnificent Siegfried, but I was more taken by a ballet that came a bit earlier on the bill: Postlewaite and Clara Ruf Maldonado’s balcony scene from Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette.

Postlewaite has danced this role for years, including a long stint with Maillot’s company Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, with his stage partner and former PNB principal Noelani Pantastico. On this night Postlewaite reprised the dance one last time with Maldonado, who debuted her Juliette just last year.

I love Maillot’s ballet, and I love this particular duet. I find it one of the sexiest in all ballet. Is it because I love the choreography? The cast? Or was it nostalgia that had me dabbing away a tear watching Postlewaite perform it at the Season Encore? Any and all of the above are true.

I have seen other great Romeos, including Dylan Wald, who is back at PNB next season. Will we see princely D’Ariano step into the role as well? Or perhaps a new artist we haven’t yet seen? I believe Maillot and his stagers still have a say in the casting, so we’ll have to wait to find out. This beautiful ballet has become not only one of Postlewaite’s signatures; it’s also a PNB staple and it’s likely to show up in the near future.

Ballet nerds like me will miss the experience that Postlewaite, Murphy and Cardea have brought to every ballet they appeared in. Their years offstage have helped foster their artistry as much as the years they’ve spent refining demanding ballet technique. With their departures, plus the pandemic aftermath, PNB is now a very young company packed with dancers who are just beginning to understand how to bring their authentic selves to the material they perform for us. It’s always hard to say goodbye but I’m excited to say hello to some new favorite dancers.

When a friend let me know this week that former Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins died this past weekend (May 30) I was shocked, although I don’t really know why.

Speight (that’s what we all called him) was 89 years old and the last time I saw him a few years back he was frail and walking gingerly across the Seattle Center lawn, with assistance. But somehow the indomitable force that had been Speight Jenkins seemed as if he would defy death. Alas, he was mortal, like the rest of us.

Although he wasn’t death defying, Speight was a force, a man so passionate about his beloved opera that he had the power to lure me to productions that even my mother (a far more avid opera fan) shunned.

One of the first stories I ever produced for National Public Radio (NPR) was about Speight’s first full Ring Cycle at Seattle Opera in the summer of 1986. Seattle Opera had presented Richard Wagner’s epic four-opera 15 hour extravaganza before Speight took his job in 1983, but it became, for me, Speight’s signature, a mammoth undertaking that drew international audiences, some who attended clad in Valkyrie-themed horned helmets or sparkling capes, or both.

I remember standing at a pay phone in Bellingham (kids, ask one of your elders what that is), trying to convince my NPR editor in the other Washington that we weren’t all lumberjacks way out here in the Pacific Northwest, that we actually could generate high quality art. This pioneering city hadn’t yet exploded onto the international rock music scene. That would happen almost a decade later. And Seattle hadn’t yet become a test site for potential Broadway musicals. The Northwest was uncharted territory for culture mavens.

Speight put out an irresistible siren call, luring art lovers here every summer, finding the funds he needed to build an opera empire from very generous acolytes. He produced a Ring Cycle every few years, but summers also brought us a host of other Wagnerian gems.

Aside from his stage productions, Speight also helped spur the renovation of the Opera House. It reopened in 2003 as Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, the current home theather for both the Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet. I have a clear memory of the opening press walk through the hall, where Speight proudly told the gathered journalists about how the women’s restrooms would have enough toilet stalls to accommodate our full bladders. A friend who worked for Seattle Opera at the time recalls his bathroom pride, and the fact that his mother suggested those bathrooms be rendered in tones of pink because that color was most flattering.

And Speight would stand proudly at the top of McCaw Hall’s grand staircase, greeting as many audience members as he could, whether he knew us or not.

One of my last work conversations with Speight took place after he retired in 2014. His successor was trying to lay the blame for the Opera’s financial shortfalls at Speight’s feet, and in turn, Speight was calling me in a feverish effort to clear his name. The situation was fraught because, while Speight may not have conducted business as usual at Seattle Opera, I’m pretty sure he covered his costs. And over his decades in Seattle, he was able to transform a solid regional arts organization into an international beacon.

Seattle is now a tech hub, luring giant yachts like Mark Zuckerberg’s into our traditional maritime waters. Newcomers may not recognize the names of people like Speight Jenkins, or Bagley and Virginia Wright, or Peter Donnelly, who helped transform this city on the Sound into an arts hub. But Speight was truly visionary as well as scary and endearing and absolutely devoted to opera. And in my decades of covering Seattle, he was one of the people who stood out to me as helping to define Seattle. Right up there with Bill Boeing, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Ichiro.

Speight used to tell a story about himself as a young boy in Texas, hanging out in a tree listening to the regular Saturday radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. Speight eventually became a regular voice on that program, before taking over the reins at Seattle Opera. Like everything, Speight forged his groundbreaking career his way, and we have reaped the bounty.

Speight, thank you for everything you brought with you. May your memory be a blessing for us all.

The first time I saw choreographer Jessica Lang’s work was more than a decade ago in 2015. Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) had put one of Lang’s solos on the bill for a farewell performance by former PNB principal dancer Carla Körbes.

The Calling, roughly four minutes long, is set to an anonymous vocal piece composed hundreds of years ago. The dancer, clad in a voluminous white skirt, moves slowly, twisting and dipping in a stage ritual that took my breath away then and in every subsequent performance I’ve had the great fortune to see. Here is an excerpt of Dylan Wald performing it about a decade ago.

In the years since then, I’ve had chances to see more of Lang’s work, both performed by her former eponymous dance company and now in the midst of her three-year artist residency at PNB. The ballet company unveiled its final program of this artistic season on Friday, May 29. Although The Calling isn’t on the ALL LANG bill, PNB presents Seattle-area audiences with three diverse Lang works that only hint at the breadth of talent this choreographer brings us.

Years ago, PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal told me that he wanted to build repertories by particular choreographers so audiences could get a sense of the scope of each one’s artistry. Boal has done that with Twyla Tharp, Alejandro Cerrudo and Crystal Pite, among others. ALL LANG adds Jessica Lang to the menu.

The evening starts with Lang’s 2016 ballet Her Door to the Sky, inspired by painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s mid-20^th century Patio Door series. The cast, featuring retiring principal Elizabeth Murphy, wear costumes designed by Bradon McDonald in what I imagine to be desert sunset colors: dusty orange, purple, pink and turquoise. The colors are also featured in Nicole Pearce’s lighting design. The result is a stately, visually arresting dance that remains beautiful after multiple viewings.

Her Door to the Sky was co-commissioned by PNB and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, but it was only the first of Lang’s large works for PNB. She’s created a growing body of dances, some of which feel as sacred as The Calling. Others simply revel in the beauty of bodies moving in space.

While they might differ stylistically, they share an underlying intelligence and a worldview that unites human dreams with the natural world. This sounds heady, but Lang has also experimented with works for audiences of all ages, like her hour-long Momotaro, an adaptation of a Japanese folktale about the legendary “Peach Boy” who helps to save his village.

Lang calls herself a visual artist who happens to work in the medium of dance. I would add that she’s a thinking person’s artist and whether you love or dislike her work, you always want to find out more about it.

In 2020, when the COVID pandemic was in full swing, Lang created the evening’s second dance, Ghost Variations, which debuted originally on video.

The ALL LANG version this year was performed live, but like the digital debut, the small cast of dancers is presented in duets with shadows, or in the case of a fabulous solo by company member Kuu Sakuragi, in tandem with five of his own shadows. The music, composed by both Robert Schumann just before he was confined to a mental asylum and by Schumann’s widow Clara, was performed onstage by pianist Christina Siemens. Lang writes in the program notes that Ghost Variations was always intended to be performed for a live audience. This ballet has moments of whimsy but to me, like The Calling, the overall feeling is reverential.

PNB’s lighting designer Reed Nakayama created the sumptuous onstage look that blends the shadows with three-dimensional dancers in shades of gray, with Siemens seated at the rear of the stage. The dancing takes place both onstage and offstage.

I have to mention what felt like a highlight of this ballet: the long-awaited return of principal dancer Elle Macy to the McCaw Hall stage. She and her husband, the wonderful Dylan Wald, partnered in Macy’s first full-on dancing role since surgery and rehabilitation. It was sublime to watch them together. All of the cast members were excellent, but for me, Macy and Wald’s partnership elevated Ghost Variations beyond excellence to transcendence. I have seen this work at least three times now, and it is fresh and surprising each time.

The last piece on the ALL LANG bill, ZigZag, was the Seattle premiere of a joyful, frothy 2021 ballet originally commissioned by and for American Ballet Theater and set to songs performed by the late Tony Bennett.

PNB’s ZigZag featured an excellent two-part cast. Six principal dancers (Angelica Generosa, Elizabeth Murphy, and Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan along with Christopher D’Ariano, Dylan Wald and Noah Martzall) alternated with eight dancers from PNB’s corps de ballet who leapt, boogied and even performed a creditable Worm. Melisa Guilliams, in a pair of polka-dotted pants, launched herself into a series of grand jetés, and all of the men danced with unending energy.

ZigZag was a highly popular way to end the evening; tons of fun and a fitting opportunity for the younger PNB dancers to strut their stuff, particularly when we consider that veteran company members Elizabeth Murphy, Lucien Postlewaite and Ryan Cardea will bid farewell to their performance careers at the special Season Encore performance on Sunday, June 7. Young corps members like Noah Martzall, Larry Lancaster, Luca Anaya and Joh Morrill have the opportunity and the potential to seize the stage for themselves.

Choreographer Lang told the opening night audience that she’s found a home at PNB; her long tenure in Seattle has allowed her to get to know the dancers and to work with them to create more resonant ballets. This ALL LANG season-ending program gives us a sample of what’s in store.

As I write this, I think about what The Calling promised us more than a decade ago. Lang’s next big PNB commission debuts this summer at Ballet Sun Valley then will open next season in Seattle. While I know many people revere ballet’s long choreographic history and yearn to see both more traditional story ballets and more works by George Balanchine, I confess that my heart beats faster when I get to peek into the art form’s future.

You can catch part of that future at Pacific Northwest Ballet’s ALL LANG through 1 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at McCaw Hall.

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. In true Seattle style, it started raining on summer’s unofficial first day and that drizzle continues.

The rain drove hordes of folks indoors, many to the movies if the crowd at my local indie cinema is anything to judge by. That’s where I went with some friends to see a film that might have been intended for families originally but The Sheep Detectives offered me a parable for modern living.

The New York Times review of The Sheep Detectives drew me to the movie; the critic heaped praise upon this computer animated story of a shepherd who reads murder mysteries to his sheep every night. After said shepherd dies suddenly, the collective flock, led by the lovely Lily, decides they have to investigate his death.

It sounds so simplistic as I write this, but I found myself completely transfixed by the collective spirit of this flock and was particularly captivated by a little lamb born off-season. The Winter Lamb, as he was called, is shunned by his fellow sheep; he’s not even given a real name. My heart hurt for him, this computer animated baby.

My heart hurts more for real-world humanity.

We are buffeted by nonstop chaos in Washington D.C., by what seems like a clown car of buffoons who nominally lead this nation. In the name of who knows what they are expanding our debt, raising prices, and putting into place barely-thought out political decisions like starting wars, then pivoting to new armed conflicts when they can’t find their way out of the first ones.

Oh yes, and dealing with who they deem to be trouble makers by hurling out insults.

Yes, me flex big muscle.

These so-called leaders lie to us, and their lies are so obvious and so mendacious that I can’t believe they persist in their mean ways. The flock of human sycophants that sucks up to the orange felon seems dumber than the flock of Sheep Detectives.

(And seriously, I need a thesaurus to collect synonyms for the word ‘mean’).

What I loved about The Sheep Detectives, aside from the fabulous actors including Julia Louis Dreyfus, Sir Patrick Stewart, Brian Cranston (all voicing flock members) and Hugh Jackman as George the shepherd, was the tender message about what we do for love, about how much we value our beloved communities, and about how we find our bravery in ways both large and small.

The kids in the theater (most of them) roared with laughter when two rams, both voiced by the amazing Brett Goldstein from Ted Lasso among other shows, were given permission to wreck the bad guy’s car by, well, ramming into it. Yes, there is violence in this film, but we’d endured trailers for a few other summer movies that seemed insufferably violent. with no redeeming message. But the violence and death of one of this movie’s main characters was there not for a laugh per se, but for a lesson that I hope we will all teach our children. Love really IS the answer.

Love and support are the ways to build and lead our communities, not omnipresent greed constant name calling and toxic muscle flexing.

Love, support and inclusion. And the pursuit of joy in our lives.

This weekend I had a long phone conversation with a good friend I haven’t seen in far too long. We’ve both suffered with health challenges and we’re both moving toward a new normal. And we both sincerely believe in the power of companionship, joy and love. You may call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I believe in fighting for our communities, be we humans or sheep.

The little Winter Lamb’s lonely, nameless, existence does come to an end in the
The Sheep Detectives. And that small moment opened the door for me to hope our society finds its way to the light.

If you’ve ever seen the annual holiday Nutcracker ballet at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB), you’ve seen at least one of the students from PNB’s Professional Division program.

The PDs, as they’re known inside PNB’s Phelps Center headquarters, are like a Triple-A farm team for Major League Baseball. Although the Professional Division is a school, with daily classes, the PDs are also PNB’s bench players, on tap to perform as Nutcracker’s extra waltzing flowers or snowflakes, or as swans or hopping Wilis in other large story ballets. I guess you could call these roles the ballet version of being called up to the majors. The PDs are utility players, well trained and invisible to most of us.

Once a year, we get a different opportunity to watch the PDs in short original works created by some of the PNB company dancers. The program, currently called NEXT STEP, is curated and directed by teacher/choreographer Eva Stone. This year Stone chose six projects from seven PNB dancers. They ranged from several slow, contemplative works to a series of whimsical vignettes by Lily Wills to a wild finale created by Zsilas Michael Hughes and featuring 15 dancers and Hughes’ own musical composition.

NEXT STEP has been around longer than that name. More than 20 years ago, in 2004, former PNB Artistic Directors Francia Russell and Kent Stowell established the program as Choreographer’s Showcase. According to Stowell, new choreography was “the future of our art form and the future of PNB.”

That hasn’t changed much except for the dancers and the dance makers. As I get older, they seem to get younger. Before the May 16 matinee that I attended, current NEXT STEP curator Stone told the 200 or so audience members who’d gathered in the ballet company’s Studio C that it was rare to have organized creative opportunities like NEXT STEP.

This year we saw six short works, each approximately 20 minutes long. And each in some way reflected either the choreographer’s personality, their creative influences, or both. None of the dance makers was the next Crystal Pite, but each had the chance to showcase themselves as well as their dance.

Soloist Ashton Edwards’ Hues of You opened the show with a speedy troupe that included some notable standouts including Max Howard, Ayana Stampley and Christopher Karhunen, who I last saw in the title role of Jessica Lang’s Momotaro. It was fascinating to see how Edwards channeled their youthful energy into their own highly technical movement style.

Luther DeMyer and the married duo of Elle Macy and Dylan Wald delivered two more beautifully danced and very somber works. DeMyer’s For the end of time featured a live performance of Olivier Messiaen’s 1940-41 Quartet for the End of time, performed by cellist Emily Hu and Christina Siemens on piano.

Macy and Wald’s To Echo was accompanied by an original score by Michael Wall, and the six dancers, wearing shades of gray, were both subdued and elegant.

Leah Terada’s compelling trio from colors of sun and steel also boasted an original score, this one written and performed by Matthias Loibner. Like the Macy/Wald ballet, it followed DeMyer’s work with slow, somber tones along with some beautiful dancing. With its intricate choreography for arms and hands, Terada’s trio was an apt reflection of Terada’s own dancing, especially the many contemporary works she’s performed both at PNB and as a freelance artist with other Seattle companies.

By the way, Terada, Macy and Wald have all spent many months sidelined by injuries and rehab. All three should be back onstage at the end of this month when PNB opens its last show of the regular season, a salute to choreographer-in-residence Jessica Lang.

I’ve now seen at least three of Lily Wills’ pieces in consecutive NEXT STEP programs. I don’t know this artist personally, but I’ve been told that each of her very lyrical, almost whimsical, dances accurately reflects Wills’ own sunny personality. Her Vignettes were most definitely a change of pace from the earlier pieces on the bill.

The NEXT STEP finale, Hughes’ PUSH, was also an apt expression of the choreographer’s almost fierce, independent stage presence. In this case, PD student Ruthie Akin seized the stage in what felt like a reflection of Hughes’ almost swashbuckling style. This work put the exclamation point on the NEXT STEP program.

We audience members don’t always get a chance to see the PDs, especially in as intimate a setting as PNB’s Studio C. If you are one dancer among a flock of swans, your job is to blend in with the flock by not distinguishing yourself. Utility players, as I said. The trick for these young artists is to stand out just enough to catch the eyes of current Artistic Director Peter Boal and his associate Kiyon Ross.

This was the first year in recent memory that PNB presented NEXT STEP in Studio C, normally the ballet company’s main rehearsal space. Black curtains and screens blocked windows and provided makeshift wings for the dancers. We didn’t get the wizardry of lighting design or other fancy stagecraft, the way we have in past performances at McCaw Hall or On the Boards. But our proximity to the dancers and the company members were excellent trade-offs. And it’s always an enticing game to watch the PDs and wonder what the future holds for them.

PNB may hire only a small number of PDs each year to fill the ranks of its corps de ballet. And we may never see how the PNB dancers’ choreographic ambitions evolve. But as the years go on, I’m so happy to watch work by former PDs like Edwards and Hughes appear on the NEXT STEP programs. And to get a chance to track the professional careers of the young artists who are yet to come.

I went to see the opening night performance of Seattle contemporary dance company Whim W’Him last Friday May 8.

Artistic Director Olivier Wevers’ seven excellent dancers were excellent throughout their Spring ‘26 program but one piece in particular grabbed me by the throat, James Gregg’s Static Bloom, the first piece on the bill.

The program continues this weekend at the Vashon Arts Center on Thursday May 14, then at the Cornish Playhouse May 15-16.

You can read more here.

I’ve been watching Lucien Postlewaite dance for almost 20 years.

That makes me sound like a stalker, but when you fall in love with a ballet dancer’s artistry, maybe that’s not far off the mark.

I think Postlewaite was in his early 20s when I first met him at Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB). He wasn’t yet one of the company’s principal dancers, but he had all the raw materials: musicality, a knack for drama, and the handsome looks and bearing of a prince.

At the age of 42, Postlewaite still has everything he needs to shine onstage.

I was reading through Postlewaite’s PNB website and was sidetracked by the many videos of him dancing in everything from classical ballets like Kent Stowell’s Swan Lake to Alejandro Cerrudo’s One Thousand Pieces, a ballet I saw in person at PNB’s last live performance before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. I confess I don’t remember a lot about Postlewaite’s roles until he was cast as Romeo in the 2008 Seattle premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s fabulous rendition of Roméo et Juliette, rotating with former principal James Yoichi Moore in that role.

If I’m not mistaken, both PNB’s Carla Körbes and Noelani Pantastico were originally cast as Juliet, but Körbes was forced out by injury so Pantastico danced every show. She and Postlewaite were brilliant together (as were she and Moore). Not long after that American premiere Maillot spirited Pantastico away to his company, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Postlewaite joined her there in 2012. They would perform together around the world, including frequent appearances in Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette.

If you follow particular dance companies, you find yourself attached to featured dancers.

Like Postlewaite and Pantastico.

I remember how sad I was to watch each of them leave the Northwest. I even bought a ticket to a special Roméo et Juliette performance they gave at PNB in 2017. Pantastico had returned to the Seattle-based ballet company in 2015 to end her career. Their February 2017 performance was a special preview of Postlewaite’s upcoming return that fall.

I have talked with Postlewaite many times since his return here almost a decade ago. I’ve seen him perform different roles and with different partners, including Leta Biasucci, Elizabeth Murphy and Clara Ruf Maldonado.

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Before her retirement in 2014, Kaori Nakamura was one of Postlewaite’s regular partners.

These women are all remarkable dancers but Postlewaite has the knack of making every one of them look even better, most recently Maldonado as his Juliet. When Postlewaite returned to PNB in 2017, he told me that his years at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo had heightened both his dramatic chops and his ability to pay close attention to his onstage partners.

I mentioned getting caught up on the videos on PNB’s website. While Postlewaite is a striking Romeo, he’s just as comfortable in ballets by Balanchine and Robbins, Tharp and Pite, Dove and Duato. That’s not to say he doesn’t leave a legion of younger PNB dancers waiting in the wings. Recently promoted principal dancer Christopher D’Ariano has similar princely charms, and I’m still waiting for the elegant Dylan Wald to resume his place as a fully able-bodied prince after a far too lengthy rehab.

I know Postlewaite has already begun his new career as a life coach; if you follow him on social media (as any stalker worth her salt would do), you know he’s been working hard to build up that new business and to make a smooth transition to life offstage.

We in Seattle get a chance to celebrate Postlewaite’s long career (and that of colleagues Elizabeth Murphy and fantastic corps de ballet dancer Ryan Cardea) at the June 7 Encore Performance at McCaw Hall.

It’s always hard to say farewell to dancers you’ve watched for years; it’s particularly difficult to bid Lucien Postlewaite goodbye. Twenty years is a long time to track an artist’s development. I have loved taking my grown son to the ballet and having him comment on the charisma Postlewaite brings to every role he dances. I feel the same way, and, although I will miss him next season, I wish Lucien Postlewaite the most rewarding of new careers and a life filled with happiness and love.

If you’ve read any of my posts over the past year you may recall that many of my relatives and friends have passed away, including my mother, who had just turned 94 when she died.

She lived a long life, but other friends seemed to transition before their time, or so it seemed to me. At age 72 I can see my death not so far ahead of me.

I was reminded of our finite lives this month as I watched my partner shrivel away in a skilled nursing facility. You might know it better as a nursing home, but it’s the same thing: an institution that exists either to administer temporary care for someone like the 37-year-old car accident victim across the hall from my partner or the retinue of people I met at mealtimes who probably ranged in age from 75 to 95, although it was hard to tell.

I feel my creaky joints and the after-effects of a half dozen small strokes when I get up every morning, but even though I maintain a faithful workout and diet regime, what I saw in this place reminded me that, while many of us can stave off the worst effects of aging, none of us will live forever.

That’s not a particularly cheery note to start talking about a ballerina who’s leaving Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) in June at the top of her game. Elizabeth Murphy came to Seattle 15 years ago, pre-pandemic, and has risen through the company’s ranks to that of principal dancer. Much like Murphy, her colleague Lucien Postlewaite also retires in June at age 42. More on him in a coming post.

I write about Murphy now because PNB featured her in the title role of Giselle in its recent digital presentation of the ballet. Murphy’s Albert, her two-timing lover, was performed by one of my favorite dancers, Christopher D’Ariano, with Melisa Guilliams dancing my all-time favorite role of Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis.

Murphy, mother of two young daughters, has missed much of her prime performance time, due to both pregnancies and to COVID-19. Despite her time off the stage, it was fascinating to see in PNB’s video how she has mastered both technique and that intangible thing called artistry. The delicate dip of her hands in Act 2, when Myrtha forces Giselle and Albert to dance for their lives, seemed to convey both grace and sorrow, the seemingly contrary emotions we carry with us and that evolve as we age. And I was reminded yet again how ballet dancers have such short careers. Their bodies can’t do the unimaginable forever.

When I watch the Wilis, the ghost victims of men who did them wrong, hop across the stage on one foot, their arms extended behind and in front of their bodies, I am in awe, but I can’t help but think I could never do that hopping. My knees and feet would be screaming at me after a single one-footed punishment. PNB’s young corps plus a host of Professional Division students augmenting their ranks, seemed to execute that traveling with ease and without complaint.

It’s hard for me to envision the elders I met at the skilled nursing facility as a battalion of zombie princesses, but I truly believe that movement (hopping or not) is what can help to hold off the ravages of old age, at least temporarily. I’ve been fighting that inevitable battle for several years and at some point I began to accept the reality of my changed physical situation. No Wili am I (although I can dream, can’t I?)

I’ve been thinking about a short social media video I first saw a few years ago. In it, an aged former ballerina sits in a wheelchair, her limbs twisted with what looks like arthritis. The narrator tells us this former professional dancer also suffers from dementia. (double click the link icon at the lower left to watch).

What’s astonishing to watch is how the first few notes from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake score resonate in her body. She doesn’t stand up, but her arms begin a graceful dance in time to the music. It’s both heartbreaking and inspirational. I read that the young dancer included in this video wasn’t a younger version of the elder, and she wasn’t even performing from Swan Lake. No matter, I got the point about how the arts can stay in our brains and bodies for a lifetime.

Guilliams’ Myrtha was good but it’ll evolve into something even more resonant as she ages, whereas Murphy’s Giselle will live in our memories, and on the PNB video I watched, as part of the culmination of her career. Murphy may never have the opportunity perform Giselle again, but perhaps someday when she’s very old, hearing the score will ignite something beautiful in her.

I was at one of the last live shows in Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in March 2020, one of three arts writers invited to watch what was supposed to be a Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) dress rehearsal of a work by choreographer in residence Alejandro Cerrudo. We writers joined PNB dancers, tech and administrative staff to make a meager audience of maybe 100 people.

As it turned out, this dress rehearsal was PNB’s last show for quite some time.

It seems like centuries ago that COVID-19’s ferocious race around the world forced almost every in-person arts venue to shut its doors. PNB was one of many Washington state arts groups that closed down for what many hoped would only be a couple of weeks.

Ha.

The ballet company welcomed back virtual audiences in the fall of that year, almost six months later. But real, live people didn’t come through the theater’s plate glass doors until a year after that, in September 2021.

I’ve never before wept upon entering a performance venue, but when I pulled open McCaw Hall’s doors, me, my friends and the ushers who greeted us were all wiping away tears.

I had a not dissimilar experience a couple months later when the former ACT Theatre resumed its annual production of A Christmas Carol. I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen the show, but the first post-COVID production was special.

Actor Nathaniel Tenenbaum came out to greet the audience. I can’t remember his pre-show speech, but when he went back into the wings, we in the audience could hear him clearly, telling his colleagues that yes, live people were actually filling the seats.

More tears.

While art may be important to people like me, it’s not central to how Americans in general think about our culture. That is, until we remember how we kept our sanity during the long years of the pandemic.

Art museums from the Louvre to Seattle Art Museum (SAM) digitized their collections and made them available to the public. We streamed taped performances of plays and symphonies, ballets and poetry readings. Online art sustained us.

Artists painted outdoor murals on boarded up shop windows, or played concerts on their front lawns for their neighbors. Art was something that connected us to a world beyond disease.

I’m not saying it was the golden era for the arts, but many of us depended on everything from books to crafting to make it through the strange pandemic era.

That’s not to say that we all have opened our wallets to help support the organizations that had to depend on public funding during the COVID years to help pay staffers, many of whom took pay cuts to prevent their organizations from permanent shutdowns.

As I sift through emails, snail mail requests and social media now, I see most nonprofit arts groups are still limping along, pitching their spiels to potential donors. Many are trying to pay down pandemic debt while others have dreams of growth and expansion. I don’t think anyone goes into the nonprofit cultural sector expecting to reap great riches, but the irony of watching the art world post-pandemic revert to a forgotten sector makes me want to weep different kinds of tears.

I’m not advocating a return to social distancing or remote-only performance. I was and will always be enamored of the synergy that flows, person-to-person, at a live show. That communion between audience and artist is special, unique and a source of joy.

What I am asking you to do is to consider art’s value both in times of crisis and in times like these when we aren’t quite as desperate to transcend our everyday lives. Art can console us when we need consolation. It can entertain us, or inspire us. Or it can simply reflect our reality back to us.

I try to hold my gratitude top of mind each time I sit down in my seat in the audience. A friend once called it opening my heart chakra. How has the reopening of your favorite arts venue impacted you? I’d love to hear your stories.