Louise Nadeau takes a final bow with PNB

A career marked by grace, lyricism and drama comes to an end at Pacific Northwest Ballet tonight, as principal dancer Louise Nadeau takes the stage for the last time in her 19 years with the company.

A petite, beautifully proportioned ballerina who appears deceptively delicate (an impression that melts away as soon as she starts moving — you realize she has limbs of steel), Nadeau has long been an audience favorite. Her performances feel like the joyous sharing of a gift; as if we collaborate in creating the moment.

Nobody who saw her Odette/Odile in "Swan Lake" will forget the dance — the white swan's delicate preening, the black swan's gleeful, razor-sharp limbs, the contrast between them so marked many may have thought they were seeing two difference dancers. In "La Valse's" dramatic final moments, as the white-clad girl dances with Death, she seemed to shrink before our eyes, being pulled into darkness.

Her comic gifts and happy lightness were shown off in "The Concert" and "Variations Sérieuses"; her remarkable flexibility and control in "Agon" and "Symphony in C"; her ability to tell a story without words in "In the Night."

Tonight she will perform excerpts from "La Valse," "West Side Story Suite" (yes, she sings, too), "Swan Lake" and William Forsythe's "Urlicht," a pas de deux newly acquired for this performance. Her PNB colleagues will dance excerpts from other ballets that Nadeau has made her own: "Emeralds," "Serenade," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "La Sonnambula," among others.

It should be an emotional farewell to an artist who'll be greatly missed. Time brings all ballerinas, eventually, to one last dance; tonight will be a tribute to one who, on many evenings, was able to make time stand still.

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