Pacific Northwest Ballet Tickets | Schedule for 2024/2025 Events

Pacific Northwest Ballet

Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) is a ballet company founded in 1972. The company is located in Seattle, Washington, and has more than 100 shows annually.

It has 49 professional dancers who perform full-length ballets from the company's mixed repertory.

PNB has toured throughout the US and other countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Europe, Australia, etc.

Pacific Northwest Ballet is famous for its Stowell/Maurice Sendak Nutcracker, which was regularly performed from 1983 to 2014. The ballet was turned into a feature film. PNB performs at McCaw Hall in the Seattle Center.

It was selected to perform at the Fall for Dance Festival at New York's City Center Theatre and at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 2006.

History and Growth

PNB was first named Pacific Northwest Dance Association when it was started as a part of the First Chamber Dance Company by Seattle Opera. Kent Stowell and Francia Russell joined PNB and made it a separate entity (1977).

It was then renamed Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1978. The duo left the company and took retirement when the 2004-05 season ended.

Stowell and Russell studied at the New York City Ballet under George Balanchine and were professional dancers with the company before they moved on to PNB.

Peter Boal became the artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2005. He was a dancer for New York City Ballet for more than two decades. He was also a permanent faculty member at The School of American Ballet (1995-2005).

Despite strong connections with George Balanchine's ballet, the company did not tour New York regularly. There was an interval of sixteen long years between the New York tours.

Pacific Northwest Ballet School was started in 1974 with Francia Russell as the director. Peter Boal took over the school as well when Russell retired in 2005.

The ballet school has earned the name of being one of the leading professional training schools in the US. The program structure resembles the one followed at the School of American Ballet. It can accommodate 100 students in each batch.

Popular Ballet Shows by PNB

Apart from The Nutcracker, the ballet company performs other famous shows like Giselle, Snow White, Boundless, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Carmina Burana, Wonderland, Duo Concertant, and so on.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers perform George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker and a few other ballets choreographed by him.