April showers bring April IDEAs!
Each month the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Newsletter will give you updates from PNB's EDI Committee and Board EDI Task Force, along with PNB events, resources like workshop opportunities, and book recommendations.
We want your submissions to include in future issues!
Seattle Arts & Culture for Anti-Racism
Seattle Arts & Culture for Anti-Racism (SACA) recently launched their brand new website and social media channels! SACA began in 2015 with a small group of volunteers who wanted to explore how to support and advance anti-racism work throughout arts and culture organizations at Seattle Center. Since then, SACA has grown to include more than 30 organizations and has expanded its work by offering free trainings, affinity and caucus spaces, one-on-one consulting, panels and more. Click to learn more about SACA, and follow along on their Facebook and Instagram channels!
10,000 Dreams: Virtual Choreography Festival
Final Bow for Yellowface's online celebration of AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Heritage Month focuses on choreographers. Every day during the month of May, Final Bow for Yellowface will profile a different choreographer of Asian descent on yellowface.org and on their Instagram account. Click here for more info, a list of choreographers featured, and the festival's opening and closing events.
Celebrating Pride at PNB
The PNB team is in the midst of planning for PNB's upcoming Pride celebration in June! We want to hear from you, our PNB community, about what Pride means to you. Share your stories, suggest songs for our 2021 Pride playlist, and more through this form.
In the Community
The Wing Luke Museum's current exhibition, Guilty Party, features "immersive installations, costume, fiction, fairytales and satire, the exhibition explores anxieties and hopes across diverse intersections of racial and gender identity." The exhibit features work from artists Jeffrey Augustine Songco, Chanel, Matsunami Govreau (Queen Gidrea), Mail Order Brides (Reanne Estrada, Eliza Barrios, Jenifer Wofford), Saya Woolfalk, and Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow.
Racial Equity Training Begins in June
PNB will be hosting full-day racial equity training for all employee groups beginning in June. The training will center on the documentary series Race: The Power of an Illusion and take place on Zoom. Registration will be required and exact dates will be communicated in the coming weeks.
RACE—The Power of an Illusion is a three-part series which asks a question so basic it’s rarely raised: What is this thing called ‘race’? What we discovered was that many of our conventional assumptions about race—for instance, that the world's peoples can be divided biologically along racial lines—are wrong. Yet the costs of racism are very real, and can even have biological consequences.
PNB is Hiring!
We're seeking an Executive Assistant to Artistic Director, Peter Boal. The Executive Assistant will provide high-level administrative support to the Artistic Director and other senior staff.
Pacific Northwest Ballet values equity, diversity and inclusion as guiding organizational principles. We seek to reflect and embrace our community, and provide a welcoming and inclusive environment where artists, audiences, students, staff and volunteers of all backgrounds learn, collaborate, and participate for the benefit of all.
Read the full job description and how to apply on PNB's website.
PNB is Listening is a collaboration between PNB artists and staff, highlighting diverse voices in our community.
Since its start in June of 2020, the series has featured panel discussions covering women who choreograph, a reflection on the life of dancer and choreographer Albert Evans, LGBTQIA+ voices in ballet, and more!
Did you know?
In 2018, PNB School updated the dress code away from exclusively pink tights and shoes to welcome students to wear flesh-colored or pink tights with shoes that match. As diversity strategist and consultant Theresa Ruth Howard states in an article for Dance Magazine, "It may seem like a simple change, but this could be a watershed moment - one where the aesthetics of ballet begin to expand to include the presence of people of color."
Read Howard's full article about flesh-toned tights in classical ballet, and how some dance apparel companies are adding more colors of shoes and tights to include a wider range of dancers.
