Dance
PNB artistic director job: 50 applicants worldwide

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 2003 Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, artistic co-directors of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, will retire at the end of the 2004-05 season.

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Pacific Northwest Ballet has moved into the next phase of its search process for an artistic director — after receiving applications from approximately 50 "very well qualified candidates," according to the company's executive director David Brown.

The candidates, who sent in résumés from around the world prior to the June 7 cutoff date, represent what Brown calls "a broad selection" of talent from which the company can choose. The winner (or winners) will step into some hard-to-fill ballet shoes, those of longtime artistic co-directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, who are retiring at the end of the 2004-05 season.

"We have embraced a very broad selection process," explains Brown of the search.

"There is a primary search committee with trustees, and Kent, Francia and myself as ex officio members. Helping this committee are two advisory panels. One is internal, with staff, dancers, musicians and stagehands. One is made up of community leaders."

Their joint task will be to reduce the initial field of 50 contenders to the 10-15 range. The next step will be to name finalists, whose number will depend on the findings of the search. Those finalists ("two, three, four, maybe as many as five or six") will come to Seattle to meet with the search committee and the two panels, probably in September.

So who's applying?

"A good many applicants are already known to us," says Brown, "but confidentiality is very important to us. We're pleased that PNB's reputation is so well known that we have attracted such a field of applicants.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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