Pacific Northwest Ballet

Recorded live at McCaw Hall, enjoy Doug Fullington's pre-show Ballet Talk about Kent Stowell's Swan Lake. Fullington covers a brief history of the ballet, Swan Lake's history at PNB, and answers audience questions. 

Doug Fullington talks all things PLOT POINTS, PNB's fourth rep of the 2021-2022 Season. Fullington's pre-performance talk from the Saturday night show takes you through Robyn Mineko Williams' world premiere work for PNB Before I Was, David Parsons' Caught, Crystal Pite's Plot Point, and the PNB premiere of Justin Peck's The Times Are Racing. 

Listen to Doug Fullington's opening night talk about Jean-Christophe Maillot's Roméo et Juliette. Fullington talks through the history of the ballet from Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Sergei Prokofiev's haunting score, and answers a few audience questions including a few about retiring PNB Principal dancer Noelani Pantastico.  Recorded at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall in Seattle on February 4, 2022. 

Ballet Talk is back in person! This episode was recorded was recorded on opening night of PNB's second rep of the 2021/22 Season, BEYOND BALLET. Former Manager of Audience Education Doug Fullington walks a small live audience through the three works that make up BEYOND BALLET. As we celebrate internationally acclaimed choreographers Ulysses Dove, Jessica Lang, and Alonzo King, we can find even more beauty in their common threads. The combination of Ulysses Dove's mournful Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, Jessica Lang's haunting Ghost Variations, and the PNB Premiere of Alonzo King's The Personal Element promises unmatched emotion, expression, and musicality.

Join PNB's former Manager of Audience Education Doug Fullington in kicking off the 2021/22 season with SINGULARLY CERRUDO. The triple bill celebrates the creative power of PNB’s Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo in the presentation of his most beloved work. Breathe in the moving tranquility of Silent Ghost, get a tantalizing look at the spectacular teamwork in an excerpt from One Thousand Pieces, and journey through the unexpected twists and turns of Little mortal jump. At the center of it all? Spectacular dancing and Cerrudo’s compelling perspective on humanity.

Doug Fullington talks about PNB's conclusion of our first-ever digital season with two world premiere works choreographed, rehearsed, and filmed exclusively for the digital stage by Tony-award winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and artistic director of Ballet Met, Edwaard Liang. PNB's Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo's cheeky work, PACOPEPEPLUTO, closes out the triple bill.

Doug Fullington's pre-performance Ballet Talk on George Balanchine's Coppélia.  

Doug Fullington's pre-performance Ballet Talk for Rep 4 of PNB's Digital Season features your behind the scenes look at Doris Duke Artist award winner Donald Byrd's world premiere work And the sky is not cloudy all day, and residenct choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo's second premiere for PNB, Future Memory, both created and produced just for the digital stage. Joining the program is an encore presentation of Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Doug Fullington is back to guide us through his Ballet Talk for Rep 2 of PNB's Digital Season. Rep 2 celebrates a lineage of female choreographers each with their own bright and arresting perspective. Doug guides us through the world premiere works Ghost Variations by Jessica Lang and Penny Saunders' Wonderland; each created for the digital stage, conceived, rehearsed, and produced during the pandemic. These new works were joined by a series of male solos from Twyla Tharp's Waterbaby Bagatelles and a new-to-PNB work by Susan Marshall, Arms.

Doug Fullington kicks off Pacific Northwest Ballet's first rep of our digital season. Rep 1 features solos and socially distanced gems from Kent Stowell’s Swan Lake, George Balanchine’s Jewels, and Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering to PNB audience favorites like Ulysses Dove’s Red Angels, Jessica Lang’s The Calling, and Marco Goecke’s Mopey.

Doug Fullington takes us behind the scenes of Jean-Christophe Maillot's Roméo et Juliette.

Mona Butler has been a bassoonist in Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra since the orchestra was founded in 1989, and PNB's Music Librarian since the position was created in 1996. Marketing Assistant Maris Antolin sat down with Mona in late February to talk about what a Music Librarian does, the years-long process of putting together the orchestra parts for Alejandro Cerrudo's One Thousand Pieces, and the hard-working artists of PNB's orchestra.

In 2015, Price Suddarth was the youngest choreographer to create a work for Pacific Northwest Ballet - we're happy to have Signature back this season. George Balanchine's Tarantella is a total showpiece, originally choreographed for NYCB firecrackers Patricia McBride and Edward Villella (the same original cast for Rubies). José Limón's The Moor’s Pavane is a dramatic and emotional re-telling of Shakespeare’s Othello, all in the form of two couples dancing. And we close the performance with George Balanchine's Theme and Variations, which is the ultimate display of classical ballet.

We have performed A Midsummer Nights' Dream over 100 times in the history of  Pacific Northwest Ballet, we have taken it on tour to many places including Istanbul, Hong Kong and Scotland. In fact, Doug Fullington went on the 2001 tour to London (where it was filmed and released by the BBC) and was in charge of the 24 student "bugs"! Learn how ballet companies have to get permission from the Balanchine Trust to alter George Balanchine's works, and who started out as a Hound, and is now performing the role of Titania.

After 36-years of working in the PNB costume shop, Larae Hascall has some stories to tell. In her final season as Costume Shop Manager, we get to ask questions about the original build of A Midsummer Night's Dream and all the nitty gritty behind the scenes details. The interview was led by Audience Education Manger, Doug Fullington.

Doug Fullington always has the inside scoop on all things PNB: we learn why Bacchus’ costumes are hues of purple, his admiration of Alicia Walter’s voice in Robyn Mineko Williams’ The Trees The Trees, and the challenges of conducting an Orchestra for ballet (which Doug is doing in Director’s Choice!).

No one is better suited to take you through the rich history of The Sleeping Beauty than Doug Fullington. He explains the "Vision Scene" and how it emulates the super natural ballets of the 1800's, like Giselle and La Sylphide. This production closely follows the Royal Ballet's version of The Sleeping Beauty. It's staged by Ronald Hynd who joined the Royal Ballet in 1951 and his wife Annette Page often danced the role of Aurora there. They set the ballet on us in 2001, and eighteen years later, this will be the last time we perform this version of The Sleeping Beauty.