won\u2019t<\/em> get stuck there,\u201d she said. Then, gesturing upward toward PNB\u2019s costume shop, she added: \u201cMy friends upstairs think you\u2019ll be fine. But if it\u2019s not possible, we\u2019ll change it.\u201d<\/p>\nLang\u2019s upbeat, responsive demeanor with the students would lead one to believe she had ample time, but she was flying to Las Vegas that night to spend 24 hours working with Nevada Ballet Theatre before the next \u201cMomotaro\u201d rehearsal at PNB the coming week. It\u2019s quite unusual for a high-demand choreographer like Lang to create a world premiere for student dancers. But the \u201cMomotaro\u201d commission offered her the chance to create something she’d never done before: a full-length narrative ballet. And for PNB, it was a chance to create a piece that could draw in new audiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Given the schedule she keeps, Lang is adept at working efficiently, and over the next hour, she continued working with two casts of Peaches, coaching dozens of 11- and 12-year-olds by individual name as she sent them tumbling, twining, swirling and finally concluding with a thrusting sky-high arm gesture that Lang called \u201cthe peach punch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The students looked a lot more confident by the end. Smiles bloomed on their faces when Lang called out, \u201cGreat work, Peaches!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lang’s first full-length narrative ballet<\/h2>\n
At the top of her professional game, Lang has created over 100 repertory pieces for companies worldwide, including repeat works for American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Opera. She\u2019s been lauded for her impeccable craftsmanship, her strong sense of visual design and the bold new challenges she takes on year after year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In her current three-year contract as PNB\u2019s resident choreographer (2025-2027), Lang\u2019s essential task is creating and setting works for the mainstage season of the professional company. Indeed, the long-awaited finale of PNB\u2019s 2025-2026 season is an \u201cAll Lang\u201d program running May 29-June 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cMomotaro\u201d is a much less visible, and prestigious, project than she usually undertakes. Commissioned for PNB\u2019s more modest family matinee series, the work\u2019s budget is nowhere near the size available for a mainstage piece; the performers are all officially school students (although young adults in the professional division are, as named, truly professional-adjacent). And for all the work involved, McCaw Hall\u2019s schedule only allows for three performances of the completed show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But this project offered Lang two allures: To explore a personal cultural story plus have full access to PNB resources during the creation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all Peter,\u201d Lang said, referring to Peter Boal, PNB\u2019s artistic director. He not only gave her the chance to create her first full-length narrative ballet; he also hoped Lang and her longtime artistic (and life) partner, husband Kanji Segawa \u2014 a veteran Alvin Ailey dancer originally from Kanagawa, Japan \u2014 might consider using a Japanese folk tale as a springboard. Boal wanted something that would resonate with Seattle\u2019s Asian community, Lang said, and \u201c’Momotaro’ slid right out of Kanji\u2019s mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Japan, versions of the \u201cMomotaro\u201d folk tale have served as inspiration for centuries. While the boy\u2019s miraculous arrival touches the life of just one childless couple, as Momotaro\u2019s devotion and courage grow over time, he becomes a hero to many. For once he reaches adulthood, he declares his intention to journey to Ogre Island to confront the thieving villains who have stolen from the village for years. The three animal friends he meets along the way \u2014 each with their own skills and personality \u2014 help him become a successful and forgiving warrior-leader. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
For Lang, whose husband has been her creative partner for the entirety of her career, the chance to honor Segawa\u2019s heritage brings a huge sense of fulfillment. \u201cHe is the reason I\u2019m doing it,\u201d said Lang, who added that after 19 years of marriage, she understands \u201chow beautiful and unique the culture is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boal offered her \u201ccomplete integration\u201d within all of PNB\u2019s school and company departments during the development phase \u2014 from the classrooms to the scene and costume shops, to the marketing department and more. \u201cI wanted her to have an opportunity to touch every department in the building,\u201d Boal said. \u201cJessica has really bold ideas that are ever-changing. She\u2019s also very nurturing to every person in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the next hour that Sunday, Lang worked with two new casts to design Momotaro\u2019s surprise reveal: an arrival requiring students from the professional division to maneuver a wheeling, hinged platform that allowed for young Momotaro to spring free from the peach\u2019s center. From there, Lang devised a flurry of gestures and dancing between the astonished parents and their beloved surprise. At hour\u2019s end, she prepared to work next with the adult Momotaros on their heroic and jubilant scenes of battle and homecoming.<\/p>\n
Throughout the rehearsals, Lang didn\u2019t turn pages in a notebook, or seem to have anything but the music to jog her memory. Could it be possible that she was actually choreographing on the spot? Or had she memorized this endless variety of dance and gestural phrases she\u2019d envisioned for both soloists and the ensemble?<\/p>\n
The answer is both.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I\u2019m prepared,\u201d Lang explained later. \u201cAnd I\u2019m prepared to be spontaneous \u2026 I have these images, and I write them down, or I just remember them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christopher Karhunen, 19, one of the professional division students who will play the adult Momotaro, was not familiar with the folk tale before he began rehearsals, but now he said he feels a growing resonance. A former longtime student at the Grand Rapids Ballet School in Michigan, Karhunen described the deep sense of allegiance and gratitude to his parents and hometown teachers since his move to Seattle last fall. \u201cI can almost relate to Momotaro now,\u201d Karhunen said. \u201cHow he wants to give back to the people who raised him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Expanding the family matinee offerings<\/h2>\n
For audiences, the family matinee programs have always been a good deal, offering elevated student dancing performed on the same McCaw Hall stage as the mainstage series and \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d all for vastly lower prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Boal, the family series is essential for bringing in new ballet audiences and new school students, and he\u2019s been steadily expanding the repertory beyond the usual children\u2019s fare of \u201cCinderella\u201d and \u201cSnow White.\u201d In 2024, Boal added a heralded version of \u201cHarold and the Purple Crayon,\u201d originally created for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, with choreography by celebrated artists Robyn Mineko Williams and Terence Marling, and music by Andrew Bird.<\/p>\n
Boal cites how the \u201csense of economy\u201d dictated by the family series budget actually melds well with the simplicity of the \u201cMomotaro\u201d tale: \u201cThere\u2019s an integrated sense of line and order throughout.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The synchronicity between Lang\u2019s deft, uncluttered narrative and the ballet\u2019s bold, hand-drawn design schema enables the presence of two long dyed ropes to come alive as a flowing blue river. In another instance, the rising drum rhythms created by the young School of TAIKO students are all that\u2019s necessary to signal the powerful physical and emotional change of scene when Momotaro and his friends arrive at Ogre Island.<\/p>\n
Viewers of Lang\u2019s other works for Pacific Northwest Ballet should recognize this sense of simple satisfaction and clarity. \u201cI\u2019m not doing anything really that different than what I would do on (the mainstage of) PNB,\u201d Lang said. \u201cIt could very easily jump up to company dancers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent Sunday afternoon at Pacific Northwest Ballet studios, one of the young PNB School student dancers cast as a river-riding Peach in the upcoming world premiere of \u201cMomotaro\u201d suddenly called across the room in fright.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t scared by the rehearsal scene: The enduring Japanese legend of \u201cMomotaro,\u201d also known as the \u201cPeach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2338983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2338982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/At-PNB-lauded-choreographer-creates-world-premiere-ballet-for-students.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2338984,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338982\/revisions\/2338984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2338983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}