In Tlingit lore the raven is a supernatural being who steals the moon, sun, and stars from a powerful man. Seattle artist Preston Singletary can be forgiven if he is confused for the modern-day manifestation of the raven, also described as a shapeshifter in mythology.  

Singletary has been enlightening audiences the world over for decades with his paintings, music, glass artistry, and most recently as a film documentarian. Now, he makes his debut as a set designer as the set architect for the upcoming reinterpretation of the classic ballet Sleeping Beauty, running at Pacific Northwest Ballet through Feb. 9. It is the first time Singletary has designed a set for live theater or dance.  

The Sleeping Beauty features scenic designs by artist Preston Singletary.

Photo by Lindsay Thomas, courtesy of Preston Singletary

“That sort of came up as a result of (PNB Artistic Director) Peter Boal approaching me and just outright asked if I’d be interested in designing the set, doing set design for the ballet. And I jumped at the chance,” Singletary says. “I was feeling like it could be a very fun and interesting project. As a musician, I’ve wanted to create some theatrical versions of the music that we do, dealing with native storytelling or what have you.”

The updated adaptation of Marius Petipa’s 135-year-old original choreography gets a refresh in PNB’s world premiere staging. Costumes designed by Paul Tazewell, who won a Tony for his costume design for Hamilton, incorporate the influence of Singletary’s Northwest Coast Native aesthetic for an updated look from the 1890 choreography. The cost of the ambitious yet short run exceeds $4 million.  

“Peter came with a lot of knowledge of my work in terms of he’d been looking and scouring the internet for my work and what the look was like,” Singletary says. “He approached me and had a bit of a checklist of things that he thought would be really cool to include. He described that he wanted to take it out of an old European setting, so that kind of resonated with me. And together we kind of formulated this idea of how we could interject certain (native) cultural objects and design to bring some of that in.”  

Singletary has also become a glass artist, a practice he was introduced to in 1982 while a student at Lincoln High School in Wallingford. He is now a full-time glass artist moonlighting as a musician, and will release three albums this spring with his band Khu.éex’ (pronounced koo-eex), which translates to “Potlatch” in the Tlingit language. The record releases include a full-length album of original songs, plus two soundtracks (one of original songs and another of ambient music) for an upcoming documentary. 

The film Khu.éex’: The Magic of Noise  has been submitted for review to the Seattle International Film Festival. If selected, the film —14 years in the making — will be featured during the festival from May 15-25.  

Produced and directed by Michael Kleven and Elke Hautala at Heartstone Studios, the film tracks the history of Khu.éex’ from its genesis during a chance encounter between founding members Singletary and the late Bernie Worrell, to the tragic deaths of Worrell and vocalist Clarissa Rizal. Worrell, the founding keyboardist of Parliament-Funkadelic and a musical collaborator with the likes of the Talking Heads, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Fred Schneider of the B-52’s and Mos Def, has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  

Singletary, whose grandmother is Filipina, was himself inducted last year into the Pacific Northwest class of the Asian Hall of Fame.  

“It’s a nice dual recognition,” Singletary says, “honoring both my Filipino heritage and my Native heritage, which is really special.”