Pacific Northwest ballet dances into the future.

Why would Peter Boal call a halt to a brilliant dancing career at New York City Ballet to assume the artistic directorship of a ballet company 3,000 miles across the country?

Boal first heard about the opening at Pacific Northwest Ballet--before Kent Stowell and Francia Russell officially announced their retirement--from PNB costumer Mark Zappone, an old friend who had been best man at Boal's wedding to former NYCB dancer Kelly Cass. "My first reaction," he said in an interview in Seattle last spring, "was that I wasn't ready. Then, I called Kent directly. What Kent and Francia have assembled is gold--the dancers, the orchestra, the school, the crew. [PNB] is rich with possibilities and it also ties all the ends together of what I've been doing--fulltime teacher, full-time dancer, starting my own company. It's all here."

Except the dancing. The 39-year-old Boal, whose NYCB career began in 1975 as one of The Nutcracker children, retired in June after 30 years with the company (see "The Dreamer: Opus 1," cover story, August, 2004. He was appointed the 43-dancer PNB's new artistic director in November.

Boal has been shuttling across the country, making at least five trips in the last few months, planning this year's programming, interviewing the dancers individually, teaching, coaching, and buying a house in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. It will hold his family, which includes three young children. "I've been living a 45-mile drive from Lincoln Center," Boal said. "Here Fin just minutes away from the studio." PNB's light, airy facilities were one of the attractions. "In New York I worked in a studio with no windows and no skylight. PNB has a healthy working environment, you can see into everything, anybody can watch new work being created. It's amazing what effect architects can have on artistic institutions."

Just as the person who designed PNB's headquarters built on to the Seattle World's Fair exhibition hall, Boal intends to build on what's already here. The 2005-06 season reflects that goal as well as the sensibility formed as a NYCB dancer and as director of Peter Boal & Company. For that short-lived troupe (and its predecessor, Peter Boal Solos), he commissioned and revived contemporary pieces.

Boal's season opener for PNB (September 22) reflects his taste and dancing past with three company premieres--Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements, Duo Concertante, and Robbins' In the Night. Boal will also resurrect William Forsythe's Artifact IL The rest of the season balances revivals from the PNB repertoire (including Ronald Hynd's Sleeping Beauty) with company premieres, as well as a new piece by the controversial Marco Goecke.

"I want to bring great choreography here and keep it here," Boal said. "This company can do Sleeping Beauty; not ever company can. They can also do innovative, contemporary work."

That takes money, and Boal is willing to do his part to raise it. "I'll promote what I believe in, the dancers, the programs," he said. "Funders are welcome to come backstage, visit the school and studio." What he is not willing to do is allow marketing considerations to drive his choice of repertoire. "We're not opening with the Ice Capades," he said crisply.

A committed teacher, Boal worked full-time at School of American Ballet. At PNB, he will teach company class twice a week, in the school once a week, and three times weekly in the summer program. "I will defend my right to teach," he said.