Michael van Baker

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancers Lesley Rausch and Jeffrey Stanton in George Balanchine's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Photo: ©Angela Sterling)

Pacific Northwest Ballet has just sent out a news release announcing that principal Jeffrey Stanton will retire after the 2010-11 season. He will have danced with PNB for 17 years, after coming to Seattle from San Francisco Ballet.

"I can now retire from my professional ballet career knowing that I gave it everything I had," says Stanton. Peter Boal remembers in particular one performance that Stanton did just that: "Jeff is perhaps the best hoofer I have ever seen in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. During one of his triumphant performances in this role he suffered a severe sprain of his ankle. Sitting in the audience, I never knew. Jeff continued to dance with all of the charm and swagger that the role required. Audiences would never have guessed that Jeff left the theater that night in a wheelchair."

Read the full release after the jump:

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Pacific Northwest Ballet Artistic Director Peter Boal and principal dancer Jeffrey Stanton have announced that Mr. Stanton will be retiring at the end of the 2010-2011 season, following a 23-year career, 17 years of which were spent with PNB.

“As I look back at my ballet career I feel a tremendous amount of pride and gratitude,” said Mr. Stanton in his announcement. “It seems only yesterday I was a student with high hopes and dreams to fulfill. What happened was everything and more than I ever hoped for. I can now retire from my professional ballet career knowing that I gave it everything I had. My hope is that it’s been as rewarding to the audience as it has been for me.”

Mr. Stanton trained at San Francisco Ballet School and the School of American Ballet. In addition to classical ballet, he also studied ballroom, jazz, and tap dancing. He joined San Francisco Ballet in 1989 and left to join Pacific Northwest Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 1994. He was promoted to soloist in 1995 and was made a principal in 1996. He is originally from Santa Cruz, California.

“Jeff is a true Prince in every sense of the word,” said Mr. Boal in his announcement. “He not only more than fulfills his princely obligations onstage in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker, but he is a Prince offstage too, leading by quiet example, carefully guiding new partners in new roles, and continually demonstrating the perfect work ethic. Jeff is perhaps the best hoofer I have ever seen in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. During one of his triumphant performances in this role he suffered a severe sprain of his ankle. Sitting in the audience, I never knew. Jeff continued to dance with all of the charm and swagger that the role required. Audiences would never have guessed that Jeff left the theater that night in a wheelchair. Jeff has been the consummate professional who has served PNB admirably during his long tenure with the Company.”

"From heart-throb Prince to heart-breaking Romeo to scintillating, top-hatted tap dancer, Jeff Stanton has done it all at PNB – and done it with virtuosity, strength and the sensitivity of the true, committed artist,” said PNB Founding Artistic Directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, who hired Mr. Stanton in 1994. “When Jeff joined PNB he was a promising, attractive young dancer we hoped would become an ideal partner for our tall ballerinas. From the first day he began to fulfill our dreams. His technique gained elegance and assurance and his conscientious, graceful partnering was an immediate hit with all the Company women. Not only Kent but guest choreographers creating in many styles almost inevitably chose him for their works.  Always a hard-worker in the studio, Jeff displayed onstage the courage and accurate theatrical instincts that can't be taught. A quiet charisma uniquely his own never failed to surprise and delight us in the inevitable transformation we saw as he went from rehearsal to performance.

“Jeff has been a brilliant dancer, great colleague and stalwart Company member for seventeen years – a lifetime in dance and a gift to his artistic directors. It is our hope that, when he retires from performing, he will pass on everything he knows to future generations of young dancers. But we will always picture him onstage: handsome, sure and, in all ways, generous."

Highlights in Mr. Stanton’s career include his performance in the role of Demetrius in the BBC's 1999 film version of Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, filmed at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London. He originated leading roles in Susan Stroman’s TAKE FIVE…More or Less; Stephen Baynes' El Tango; Donald Byrd's Seven Deadly Sins; Val Caniparoli's The Bridge; Nicolo Fonte's Almost Tango and Within/Without; Kevin O'Day's Aract and [soundaroun(d)ance]; Kent Stowell's Carmen, Palacios Dances, and Silver Lining; and Christopher Stowell's Zaïs.

Mr. Stanton has performed as a guest artist for Le Gala des Étoiles in Montreal, Prague Gala of Stars, and the TITAS Command Performance of International Ballet in Dallas, Texas. In 2000, he participated in The George Balanchine Foundation's Interpreters Archive series, dancing excerpts from Balanchine's Episodes, coached by Melissa Hayden. He is also featured on the 1999 danceWORKS fitness video.

Other Leading Roles: George Balanchine's Agon, Apollo, Ballet Imperial, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Chaconne, Coppélia (Dr. Coppelius), Diamonds, Divertimento No. 15, Emeralds, The Four Temperaments, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Demetrius, Divertissement pas de deux), Serenade, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Stars and Stripes, Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Theme and Variations, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, La Valse, Western Symphony, and Who Cares?; Todd Bolender's Souvenirs; Val Caniparoli's Lambarena; Dominique Dumais' Scripted in the Body; Eliot Feld's Intermezzo; William Forsythe's Artifact II and In the middle, somewhat elevated; Paul Gibson's Diversions and Rush; Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow (Count Danilo) and The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Désiré); Robert Joffrey's Remembrances; Jiri Kylian's Petite Mort; Edwaard Liang's Für Alina; José Limón's The Moor's Pavane; Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette (Paris); Peter Martins' Fearful Symmetries and Valse Triste; Mark Morris' Pacific; Marius Petipa's Le Corsaire Pas de Trois, Don Quixote, and Paquita; Jerome Robbins' Fancy Free, In the Night, and West Side Story Suite (Riff); Kent Stowell's Carmina Burana, Cinderella (Prince), Delicate Balance, Firebird, Hail to the Conquering Hero, Kammergarten Tänze, Nutcracker (Prince), Quaternary, Swan Lake (Prince Siegfried), The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Romeo), and Zirkus Weill; Lynne Taylor-Corbett's The Ballad of You and Me, Mercury, and The Quilt; Glen Tetley's Voluntaries; Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs; and Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain pas de deux. At San Francisco Ballet, he performed leading roles in works by Lew Christensen, Agnes De Mille, James Kudelka, Mark Morris, and Jerome Robbins.

And now a video preview of what you're likely to see tonight, once the roads ice back up. People, charge your cameras! If you're driving, a safety tip: Avoid really steep hills. 

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This morning, the following roads are closed:

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• 1700-2200 block of East Madison Street
• 19th Avenue Eeast and Boyer Avenue West
• Dravus Street from 20th Avenue West to 27th Avenue West
• 6th Avenue South from Yesler Way to South Main Street
• Northeast 51st Street and Latona Avenue
• Northeast Denny Way from Melrose to Stewart
• 23rd Avenue East at Alder Street
• Marion Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue
• Northeast 50th Street at University Way
• Northeast East Marginal Way South at South Michigan Street
• 6th Avenue at Madison Street

Our Flickr pool's Chris Blakeley came across this SUV "abandoned maybe fifteen feet away from the top of Queen Anne." Other drivers weren't so lucky.

Looking west on E. John St.

Here's the latest street closures from SDOT:

• Northbound and southbound Alaskan Way Viaduct
• West Dravus Street between 20 and 27 Avenues
• Battery St. Tunnel
• NE 5100 block of Latona Ave. N
• Denny Way between Melrose and Stewart Sts.

I would just add that the streets are sheets of ice, and an hour ago I watched two cars do full 360s down Denny over I-5. They were creeping along, not speeding--it's just extremely slippery out there. SDOT will be out salting roads, but they warn that bridges and elevated structures require an abundance of caution. The storm is supposed to finish its snow-dumping work by 10 p.m., but the morning commute will still be ice-tastic. Less stressful photos after the jump:

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Every snow day in Seattle comes with a checklist: Shot of snowy "Black Sun" in Volunteer Park? Done.

Pine cones? Check!

Bright red berries? Mmm. Probably poisonous though.

And finally, a whimsical juxtaposition.

Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo

(My apologies if you were in the mood for some brawny men building a snow fort.) The Woodland Park Zoo closed to the public at 3 p.m. today because of the snowy conditions, but that doesn't mean zoo residents had to huddle inside, too. The bears were putting those fur coats to good use.

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Our Flickr pool's shawnmebo is already back with snow day shots! That's fast!

UW meteorologist Cliff Mass has been putting out updates fast and furiously regarding the snow forecast for today, which is changing hourly as snow accumulates. Now he's concerned about "serious snow."

His latest post (titled "Humility") says we're pretty much guaranteed "2-4 inches south of the city, with roughly 1-2 inches on the north side. More as you head towards the Cascades and south." (Let's go to the radar!)

But looking at the way things are setting up, that might not be the worst in store:

The 11 AM surface map...just available shows a 1002-mb low over the NW tip of the Olympic Peninsula and the latest visible image show VERY unstable air offshore. If the low goes south of us and draws some of that cold, unstable air in...and it meets the cold stream from the north, we are talking about serious snow (6-12 inches).

Mass was earlier led astray by models which had the low farther south of Seattle, bringing us a blast of cold air but not much in the way of snow. ("Clearly, this was not a great success for the models--clearly more is getting farther north than forecast this morning.")

Might as well head home and fire up the hot chocolate, and wait to see what transpires. 

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We're going another way with Glimpses this morning. No snOMG pictures. Pure Kodachrome summer, courtesy of our Flickr pool's Great_Beyond, who writes:

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"While summer '10 is all but dead and buried around town, thanks to the lag between me taking Kodachrome pictures and actually developing/posting them, we can still enjoy fragments of it.

Ah, summer...."

Michael Patten as Martin Luther, Connor Toms as Hamlet, and Chad Kelderman as Faustus in "Wittenberg" (Photo: John Ulman)

Playwright David Davalos may be responsible for the existence of the play Wittenberg (at Seattle Shakespeare Co. through December 5) but the set-up was just a matter of connecting the dots. As Davalos explains: "I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that Shakespeare identifies Hamlet as a student at Wittenberg, Marlowe cites Faustus as part of the faculty there, and history puts Luther there, teaching, preaching and launching the Protestant Reformation."

Thus, Wittenberg's biblio-porn slash-fic in which genial philosophy professor John Faustus (Chad Kelderman) and volatile theology instructor Martin Luther (Michael Patten) spar about the merits of faith and reason while "guiding" their undeclared-major head-case, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Connor Toms)--before he is called home for a family emergency. Like most prequels, it struggles to get to its dramatic feet, and in fact it works best when Hamlet is a bit part. (Hamlet gets enough attention as it is--on a multipurpose note, Wittenberg's set is Jennifer Zeyl's Hamlet set, gussied up with collegiate warmth.)

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It's the argument between colleagues Faustus and Luther that animates the play, but Davalos has also overstuffed the proceedings with historical and literary in-jokes. Imagine if Airplane! was written by a post-doc, or better yet, imagine The Simpsons Harvard writers taking a crack at "theatre." From the opening scene of Dr. Faustus nailing papers to a bulletin board, to Hamlet's strange dream of a black obelisk on the moon, the play is a cyclonic mingling of esoteric and happily random references. 

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Kelderman's Faustus more or less steals the show--but if you're a 16th-century Timothy-Leary-alike who dispenses the new discovery coffee and hash, plays open mics at the local tavern*, and is the standard-bearer for rationalism on campus, stealing the show is really the least you could do. Kelderman shades his likably damaged character, and persuades you of his inspirational capacity. Patten's grumpy Luther may be his antagonist, but Michelle Chiachiere, as the Eternal Feminine (an adventuresome Helen, the barmaid Marguerite), is his nemesis. 

In all, it's as if Davalos sat down to write a comedy specifically for the audiences of the Seattle Shakespeare Co. You get to see Connor Toms off-handedly blank-versifying for his Hamlet-yet-to-come, and topping off his performance with a heated tennis match with one Laertes. There's the Fibber McGee's closet of historical and literary references. And there's faculty humor. Not for everyone, no. But director Rita Giomi mostly smooths over the play's baggy pacing, and finds the quiet humanity in questions that tie together people centuries apart, in the perennial indecision of student life, in the ferocious defense of what we've invested too much in not to believe.

*Kudos to lighting designer Tim Wratten and sound designer Kevin Heard for so deftly transporting everyone to a dimly lit bar, buzzing with beery conversation.

In fact, Capitol Hill superheroes really drive a Kia. See CHS story below.

• 'Only in Ballard' campaign launches (My Ballard)
• North Beacon Hill Council protests closure of Neighborhood Service Center (Beacon Hill Blog)
• U-Needa Burger! (Belltown Messenger)
• BelltownPeople.com Holiday Special/ Entrepreneur Highlight! (belltownpeople)
• With police violence as backdrop, cops say superheroes at work in Seattle, patrolling Hill by Kia (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Big rock stalls Madison Valley Stormwater project (Central District News)
• Eastlake weekly police reports: Burglars hit commercial building (Eastlake Ave)
• The New Guy In The Universe (Fremont Universe)
• City presents overview of Nickelsville in SoDo, addresses concerns (Blogging Georgetown)
• Councilmember Conlin: City Council is still working to prevent offices from moving into Green Lake Community Center (My Green Lake)
• Big crowd at meeting with FAA but few answers (Magnolia Voice)
• MORE Maple Leaf burglaries this month (cars, too) (Maple Leaf Life)
• Man confronts woman about pushing child in stroller (PhinneyWood)
• Uptown Theatre closing November 28 (Queen Anne View)
• South Seattle Cop on “Are Seattle Police Out of Control? Community Reacts to Recent Incident Caught on Tape” (Rainier Valley Post)

• 15th Avenue NE Reconstruction Open House Scheduled (Ravenna Blog)
• Neighbors get a few answers at crime prevention meeting (Roosiehood)
• Rainy Gardening (Southend Seattle)
• Local artist 'without a medium' finds calling in graphic novels (South Seattle Beacon)
• (The Southlake)
• Husky Stadium renovation plan gets green light (U District Daily)
• Help Seattle Public Schools plan 2011-2012 budget (My Wallingford)
• 7th grader at Eckstein attacked, robbed on his way to school (Wedgwood View)
• ‘The Hole’ followups: Read the ruling; see who’s tracking its safety (West Seattle Blog)

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