What to Watch: Pacific Northwest Ballet in "Agon" Rehearsal

September 23, 2019

We always love a ballet streaming event. That’s why you need to clear your afternoon (or at least keep your phones and laptops handy) on Wednesday, September 25. At 12:00 pm PST/3:00 pm EST, Pacific Northwest Ballet will be streaming rehearsals for George Balanchine’s Agon, led by founding artistic director Francia Russell. The company is gearing up to perform the neoclassical masterpiece for their season opening program September 27-October 6, along with Kent Stowell’s Carmina Burana.

Russell brings a special wisdom to Agon —she was in the original cast at New York City Ballet in 1957. She became a soloist with the company in 1959, and after her performance career she was among the first ballet masters Balanchine chose to stage his works. Russell and her husband, Kent Stowell, became the founding artistic directors of PNB in 1977, leading the company until their retirement in 2005. Her staging of Agon includes an early version of the prelude for the first pas de trois (shown in the video footage below from 2013).

The rehearsal was recorded on Monday at PNB’s studios in Seattle and will be streamed on the company website Wednesday at pnb.org/live/. But if you miss it, you’ll still be able to watch the recording on PNB’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. For more information, as well as to sign up for a reminder before the event, click here.