Patricia Barker's.Patricia Barker's dancing is imbued with nuance, wit, humor, and clarity. For 26 years, she graced the stage of Pacific Northwest Ballet The Pacific Northwest Ballet is a ballet company and based in Seattle, Washington in the United States. Founded in 1972 as part of the Seattle Opera and named the Pacific Northwest Dance Association, it broke away from the Opera in 1977 and took its current name in 1978. , but this month she'll take her final bows. "A Celebration of Patricia Barker" is a fitting farewell for a ballerina whose face is known to many not only from her longevity at PNB PNB Produit National Brut (French) PNB Punjab National Bank (India) PNB Philippine National Bank PNB Producto Nacional Bruto (Spanish: Gross National Product) , but also from videos of the company's Nutcracker and the BBC's A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written sometime in the 1590s. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and . The tall, long-limbed girl from Richland, WA, studied on scholarship at Boston Ballet History The Boston Ballet is a professional ballet company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams and was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. and the PNB school before joining the company in 1981 as an apprentice. Within five years, she became a principal. She has danced leading roles in almost 80 ballets, about a third of them by Balanchine (a mainstay of the company). "She is, in the true sense of the word, a ballerina," says PNB's artistic director Peter Boal. "You can see that from the first minute she's onstage." He continues, "Twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. a principal, and she's still adding roles to her repertoire." Barker excels at interpreting neoclassical ne·o·clas·si·cism also Ne·o·clas·si·cism n. A revival of classical aesthetics and forms, especially: a. A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and contemporary ballets. "Patricia has always been thrilling to watch," says PNB founding artistic director Kent Stowell. "She is a hard worker; determination and ambition she has in spades." Barker says, "The greatest highlight of my career has been to live in someone's heart if only for an hour, to give joy, sadness, pleasure." Grateful for the support of PNB, she says, "I have fulfilled my purpose as an artist." In the celebration this month, she will dance in her favorite ballets, like Theme and Variations. Upon retirement, Barker plans to continue her work as part of the artistic team for the Slovak National Ballet and as an advocate for bone health and awareness. "Or maybe," she says, "I will buy a coffee plantation in Hawaii and enjoy the sun." |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion