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PNB Principal Dancer Kaori Nakamura to Retire this Year

One of PNB’s finest leaves the flock

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This article originally appeared in the June 2014 issue of Seattle magazine.

!–paging_filter–pShe’s channeled a sleepy princess, a star-crossed lover and a human cursed to live as a swan—all while strapped into toe shoes. And now Kaori Nakamura is taking on an entirely new role. After 17 years with Pacific Northwest Ballet (16 as a principal dancer), she’s retiring from the stage at the end of this season, but will stay on with PNB as a faculty member at the ballet school. Dance fans will miss the precise, weightless grace she radiated on stage, playing pivotal characters in Cinderella, Don Quixote, The Merry Widow, Coppélia and other ballets. This month she takes the lead in Giselle (running through June 8) and she’ll be a featured performer on PNB’s one-night-only Season Encore bill, which will showcase some of her finest work, including the balcony pas de deux from Roméo et Juliette and the Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty. Unless you’re planning to sign up for ballet school, this is your last chance to witness the work of one of Seattle’s most talented shape-shifters. em6/8. 6:30 p.m. Prices vary. McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St.; 206.441.2424; a href=”http://www.pnb.org” target=”_blank”pnb.org /a/em/p

 

Rearview Mirror: Spinasse at Home, a New Spa Experience, and Seattle Mag’s Reader’s Choice Awards 

Rearview Mirror: Spinasse at Home, a New Spa Experience, and Seattle Mag’s Reader’s Choice Awards 

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

YOUR VOTE MATTERS Everyone has a favorite restaurant, coffee shop, or local boutique. Call me old-school, but I will die on the hill that Caffe Vita has the best coffee in town. Disagree with me? Now’s your moment to speak up. Each year, we survey Seattle magazine readers, asking them to weigh in on everything…

Studio Sessions: Ling Chun

Studio Sessions: Ling Chun

The Seattle-based artist brings playful color to ceramics and neon while exploring memory, transformation, and life between cultures.

For Ling Chun, creating begins with something sensed before it can be named. Working with clay, glass, light, and sometimes synthetic hair, the Hong Kong-born artist gives physical form to things that words cannot always hold. “For me, the magnitude of making goes far beyond the object that is eventually produced,” Chun says. “The object…

The Magic of PAX Is Stronger Than Ever

The Magic of PAX Is Stronger Than Ever

PAX West draws more than 100,000 people to Seattle each year. Co-founder Jerry Holkins reflects on what the gaming convention set out to change, how its community has grown and why gathering face to face still matters.

Access to game news as it was happening was difficult back in the day. Even with the advent of the internet, communication between game publishers and journalists was still a very elite affair.  I used to fake credentials—via fax machine!—to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo, mostly just known as E3. It was simultaneously as loud…

Your Guide to Bumbershoot 2026

Your Guide to Bumbershoot 2026

Navigate Seattle’s wildest end-of-summer weekend with 20 picks spanning Death Cab for Cutie, Blood Orange, wrestling, skateboarding and—obviously—movies made in 48 hours.

Four years after Bumbershoot returned with its quirkiness revivified, Seattleites broadly acknowledge the two-day multimedia extravaganza as a welcome finale to the summer festival season. Fests like Bumbershoot are designed around a choose-your-own-adventure model, but if you’re the kind of person who looked at this year’s sprawling lineup—featuring multiple bands, artists, and exhibits happening at…