Shaking it up: Peter Boal brings his distinctive vision to PNB's repertoire and profile.

Since taking over the leadership of Pacific Northwest Ballet, Peter Boal has heaped challenge upon challenge on the dancers. He has added new repertoire, more performances, and more touring. Rehearsals are now shorter and more intense, and company class is shaved by 15 minutes. He has introduced works by Jerome Robbins, Ulysses Dove, and Twyla Tharp, as well as Seattle natives Mark Morris and Robert Joffrey. He brought in dance makers who don't usually work for ballet companies like Susan Marshall and Rubberbandance's Victor Quijada (See "Minds in Motion," page 46). And of course, there is more Balanchine.

How are the dancers faring with these heightened demands? Principal Noelani Pantastico, known for her luscious movement quality, says, "I had to grow up and take responsibility for my dancing and muster up the confidence, all on my own." Corps member James Moore, who performed Marco Goecke's strange and bracing solo Mopey, says about Boal, "I totally trust his vision and how he sees the future of this company. You're exposed to a lot here that you wouldn't be in other places. He likes speed."

The emphasis on speed is a natural link to Boal's heritage as a Balanchine dancer. During his 20 years at New York City Ballet, Boal became a supreme classical artist and a performer with great depth (see cover story, Aug. 2004). "A lot of what I program are things that were rewarding for me to experience as a dancer," he says, "and I'd like these dancers to have that experience."

This month Boal brings an experience to PNB's audience that draws on the entire Northwest. For Celebrate Seattle, a three-week mini-festival, he's invited choreographers associated with the region to set a piece on PNB. It will be a homecoming of sorts for Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Mark Morris. Seattle native Robert Joffrey's pas de deux from Remembrances will enter the rep, which is especially sweet to see, since his works haven't been performed in Seattle since the early 1980s. There will be works by PNB school faculty member Sonia Dawkins and corps dancer Kiyon Gaines, as well as a world premiere by in-house choreographer Paul Gibson.

To widen the concentric circles, artistic directors John Alleyne of Ballet British Columbia and Christopher Stowell of Oregon Ballet Theater are bringing their companies to perform. Seattle-based postmodern groups Spectrum Dance Theater, which tends to have a strident edge now that it's under the direction of Donald Byrd, and Mary Sheldon Scott/Jarred Powell Performance, who perform Scott's quirky, dreamlike choreography, are also thrown into the mix.

Although Boal has a great respect for his predecessors Francia Russell and Kent Stowell (also Balanchinians, but from a previous era), he has made some strikingly different choices for the company. While they didn't want to use guest artists, preferring to give company members as many opportunities as possible, Boal feels that the cross-pollination and subtle competition you get with a guest in the house is worth whatever disruption it might cause. So Seattle audiences have seen renowned figures like Rasta Thomas on cast lists. And while the former directors insisted that, if the company were going to tour, the entire ensemble would go, Boal is sending smaller delegations out beyond the region to raise visibility nationally. Ariana Lallone, a veteran of the "everyone goes along" tours, was happy to be part of a small group at Jacob's Pillow last August. "We got out of our cars and stepped on the grounds of Jacob's Pillow, and it was very clear--the history and the environment we were going to be a part of for that week. The Pillow is a huge part of dance history."

Boal's first season, 2005-2006, was full of the hyper-alert dancing that you get when artists know a new pair of eyes is on them. The year opened with breathtaking performances of Robbins' In the Night and Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements, and closed with a pair of full-length ballets: the Ronald Hynd production of Sleeping Beauty that has been in the PNB rep for several years, and a new production of Balanchine's milestone ballet, Jewels. Lallone was remarkably tender in the Robbins and danced the "tall girl" in "Rubies" with her usual powerful sweep. And Patricia Barker, soon to retire, gave her performances in "Diamonds" a kind of regal wildness. Carla Korbes, who migrated from NYCB, seems poised to step into some of Barker's roles as a tall, cool blonde. She made debuts in works familiar to her like La Valse, and in new territory as Odette/Odile in Russell and Stowell's version of Swan Lake last February.

Halfway through its 2006-2007 season, PNB announced its plans for the following year--more Balanchine and Robbins, more Tharp and Forsythe, another spring festival, more work from choreographers outside the mainstream of ballet. Altogether, more of everything, and just a little bit faster.

Questions for Peter Boal

How do you choose your choreographers? When deciding on choreographers to invite, the first link is "What would I like to see?" And that is a lot of New York City Ballet, a little ABT, and a hefty dose of The Joyce--plus a little BAM and The Kitchen mixed in. So it's not limited to one type of choreography, but it always maintains the element of quality. The obligation is to be forward-looking and help choreographers get a start and give them fresh opportunity--when Paris Opera Ballet did a Trisha Brown work, that cast her in a whole new light.

How does this feed the dancers? There's nothing that these dancers can't do, and i want them to be reminded of that on a regular basis. When Victor Quijada came in, they all pulled back into their pointe shoes and said, "No way." But Noelani Pantastico said, "You want me to spin on my back? I'll try it." She's an established ballerina, so others tried too. Jonathan Porretta jumped in headfirst. A number of them came to me after Victor's piece, or Dominique Dumais' piece, and said, "This is one of the greatest artistic experiences I ever had."

What's in the future for PNB? I'd like to have an annual spring festival. Our next one, in 2008, is on dance and comedy. And the next may be collaborations between dance and film. The excitement around the Fall For Dance festival at New York's City Center is inspiring. We now have lower ticket prices as low as $12 for students.

Are you hoping for national attention? Interestingly, to focus on your own city as we are with the Celebrate Seattle festival gives you a certain amount of national attention. The choreographers the Pacific Northwest has produced--Merce Cunningham, Robert Joffrey, Mark Morris, Trisha Brown--it's really quite astounding. We want to tell our public to check out the smaller venues today and find the next Mark Morris.

Do you have a relationship with the rest of the Seattle dance community? We have a partnership with 17 other dance-related institutions here. We're doing an event for this group. We've coughed up our mailing lists and we're going to have a conversation. We need to ask, how can we help each other? We're all in this together.

Sandra Kurtz writes about dance in Seattle, WA.