Pacific Northwest Ballet's newly appointed artistic director, Peter Boal, clearly has ballet in his bones.

Visiting Seattle last month in advance of his July start date, he paused for an interview in a conference room located just above a PNB studio where a class was being taught. As the piano music wafted into the room, Boal seemed to bend toward it, an unconscious reaching toward the barre.

It's a habit cultivated over a lifetime. As a principal with New York City Ballet, he has danced leading roles in ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. He knew Balanchine firsthand, and still counts among his colleagues world-renowned dancemakers such as Tharp, William Forsythe and Molissa Fenley. He has won the dance world's greatest honors — the Bessie award and the Dancemagazine award. And he's an instructor at the closest thing this country has to a church of ballet — the School of American Ballet.

Now he is poised to take the reins of PNB when longtime artistic directors Francia Russell and Kent Stowell retire at the end of this season. Does his distinguished background — and these links to a more contemporary aesthetic — spell significant changes for the company?

Well, no — or, at least, not many, and not immediately.

Cathi Hatch, chair of the PNB board, notes that the company, in seeking a new artistic director, spent some time examining its philosophy and vision. "We came to the conclusion that we did want to continue in the same direction," said Hatch. "That doesn't mean carbon copy, no change, but that we will generally be the same ballet company that we have built ourselves to be over 30 years."

And that's just fine with Boal. "I think that this company's been built on innovation and change, and it's been built on tomorrow, and it's been built on yesterday," he said.

Currently, PNB has four tentpoles of its repertoire: works by Balanchine, full-length story ballets, original dances by Stowell and new choreography. Some of these areas will see little change. Balanchine is a given. Story ballets, such as "Sleeping Beauty," "Swan Lake" and, of course, "The Nutcracker," are among PNB's most popular box-office draws and have helped give the company financial stability. The troupe will no doubt continue to present them, along with some of Stowell's repertory ("Hail to the Conquering Hero" is on the 2005-2006 season, as well as his "Nutcracker").

A contemporary canvas

Of more interest is what Boal will bring to the task of choosing new work for the company. Having had a taste of programming when selecting choreography for his own New York-based company, Peter Boal and Company, Boal describes his new job as "the gift of a bigger canvas to paint on."

Next season already gives a hint of Boal's eclectic tastes, with a number of PNB premieres. Twyla Tharp, a contemporary choreographer whose works have never been performed at PNB, will be represented by "Nine Sinatra Songs," on her own recommendation. Boal has worked extensively with her, and presented her work at his company. Jerome Robbins, with whom Boal spent "many years benefiting from his coaching," will be on the program with "In the Night."

Also represented will be Ulysses Dove, a lesser-known choreographer of whom Boal is a champion (Dove created about 20 "really amazing" works before his death in 1996, said Boal, who performed his work at NYCB), and New York-based choreographer Susan Marshall.

Unlike Stowell, Boal is not a choreographer himself. He's dabbled in the art, but says, with refreshing candor, that the results were "not all that good."

"I'm in a position to shop the world," he said, "to see what choreographers are out there, and to look at what choreographers are in this building, and are in the Pacific Northwest." Though he says he's not opposed to the idea of eventually hiring a resident choreographer, he has no immediate plans to hire one. "One of them may emerge, who lives here or wants to be here. I'm open to that."

The first Mr. B

Of course, the backbone of the PNB repertory will remain Balanchine. Boal speaks warmly of the man who inspired his career: "I started going [to New York City Ballet] at age 5, and I knew all about Balanchine. I really trained, because I wanted to work with Balanchine. He was the inspiration. When he died, I was an apprentice with the company, in 1983. I joined the company three days after he died. But I worked with him in children's roles. Balanchine is what I grew up breathing, watching, living, dancing, very dear to me."

JERRY DAVIS PNB has "been built on innovation and change, and it's been built on tomorrow, and it's been built on yesterday," said Peter Boal.

New York City Ballet is the great repository of American ballet history, and Boal represents a link with that past (as did Russell and Stowell, who worked side-by-side with Balanchine during their own stints at NYCB). While in Seattle several months ago, he had the opportunity to work on the Balanchine ballet "The Prodigal Son" with PNB dancers Le Yin, Lucien Postlewaite and Jonathan Porretta. "I did [that role] for 19 years, did my last one two weeks ago. I have really felt so strongly about that ballet."

In the studio with the PNB dancers, he told them, "this is what I thought about, this is what Jerome Robbins worked with me on in this, this is what Edward Villella told me, this is what Victor Castelli told me — he just died last week, he had done the last 'Prodigal Son' under Balanchine." Ballet is passed from generation to generation through words and gestures, and Boal emphasizes that he is just one link in this human chain. He tells the dancers he coaches, "This is what this moment felt like to me, [but] you're going to have your own 'Prodigal Son.' This is material that I'm offering. You don't have to take it, but I just want you to know it."

Boal hopes to bring Balanchine muse Suzanne Farrell to Seattle, to stage the full-length "Jewels," which has never been performed at PNB (though the company has presented its jazzy centerpiece, "Rubies"). And he speaks eagerly of bringing some new-to-Seattle Balanchine works. He's been given permission by the Balanchine Foundation to stage "Duo Concertant" this season, and hopes to eventually bring other favorites (mentioning specifically "La Sonnambula."

In the classroom

Coming from NYCB, Boal has a clear sense of dance history — and of the importance of a school. Balanchine's vision — and the company's identity — was enacted by dancers who had been schooled in a trademark style at the School of American Ballet. PNB's school, which currently has more than 800 enrolled students, likewise acts as a portal to the company. Twenty-four of the troupe's 43 dancers received training there.

Boal's passion for dance education is clear from his schedule: he's long carried a full teaching load of 13 classes a week at SAB, as well as a full-time performance schedule. Hatch noted that the PNB dancers gave rave reviews when he guest-taught a company class. He was surprised to find many of his former SAB students at PNB. "I thought I had six or seven former students [at PNB] — I had 14." In teaching the professional division PNB students, he asked how many of them had taken class with him before. About half the hands went up.

He hopes to teach company class twice a week, and teach in the PNB school once a week, if his schedule allows. In class, he says he emphasizes musicality — a basis of strong technique — but then letting the individual come out. That can be through phrasing, he says, "angles of the head and eyes that you offer to the audience."

As a role model, he points to Peter Martins, artistic director of NYCB who also runs the School of American Ballet. "He's pretty much hands-on, which involves a lot of time. You have to be very careful. But it works well, and he has a co-chair of the faculty who he trusts completely."

A difficult passage

As with any new artistic director, Boal is inheriting some administrative headaches: PNB has experienced sizeable operating deficits in recent years (at times topping $1 million), though executive director D. David Brown says the company ended the 2003-2004 fiscal year with a surplus. And he's mindful of the constraints of a limited budget — "that word, 'budget,' nobody warned me about that word," Boal laughs. "It comes knocking on the door of artistic vision on a regular basis."

Excited about the possibilities for the future, Boal is poised to make his mark on the company, but speaks reverently of his predecessors, enlisting their help in the upcoming season. (Both Stowell and Russell will help stage ballets in 2005-2006.)

Of the buzz surrounding his arrival, Boal says he hopes that "people are going to look at this treasure that they have and they're going to think about what Kent and Francia did for this community, and these students. It's incredible, it's time to really reflect on the gifts that are right in front of you."

Gracious words, but the real question is — will the talented Boal turn out to be a gift to the Seattle dance community as well? Time will tell.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com