PNB Dancer Brittany Reid Announces Retirement

Pacific Northwest Ballet corps de ballet dancer Brittany Reid has announced she will be retiring at the end of the run of Kent Stowell's Swan Lake (April 10 - 19), following a 15-year career with PNB.

"I am going to be married this summer and will be moving to the Washington, DC area, where I plan to teach Pilates," said Ms. Reid. "I want to thank everyone at PNB - both in the audience and behind the curtain - for an amazing 15 years! You have been my friends and family, grown up with me, watched me grow onstage and off, and made me the woman I am today. I leave PNB for the next phase of my life with joy, and thank you for sharing your lives with me!"

"Brittany has been an absolute mainstay of PNB, performing corps, soloist, and principal roles in almost every production over the past 15 years," noted Artistic Director Peter Boal. "Perhaps more than any other Company member, Brittany has listened and applied every correction, working tirelessly to improve every day. She has been a great support to me and to all of her co-workers and she will be missed. We thank her for her impeccable work ethic, her positive demeanor, hundreds of exciting performances, and countless pirouettes! We wish her only the best in the next phase of her life."

Ms. Reid is from Huntington Beach, California. She trained at the School of American Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet School before joining the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in 2000. Some of her favorite roles with the Company have included Ulysses Dove's Vespers; David Dawson's A Million Kisses to my Skin; Helena and Hippolyta in George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and roles in hisSerenade and Who Cares?; Summer in Kent Stowell's Cinderella, and Flora in his Nutcracker.

"Brittany Reid was an outstanding member of a generation of young PNB women who created the Company's reputation in the dance world for having the most beautiful, elegantly long-limbed female dancers in the country," said Founding Artistic Directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell. "In her 15 years with PNB, she distinguished herself in every ballet, every role in which she was cast. She could never wait to rise to the many challenges of her work with the dedication and total commitment that are integral to her character. And she could never finish making her performances better and better. Brittany has been a superb Company member and a shining example for the younger dancers following her from the School into the Company. Each of us who worked closely with her will always remember her bright eyes, her sweet, open smile, her big hugs, and her surpassing love of dance. She leaves behind her, with colleagues and audience members alike, a wealth of affection and respect."

Ms. Reid has danced leading roles in George Balanchine's Coppélia (Spinner), Divertimento from "Le Baiser de la Fée," The Four Temperaments, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Helena, Hermia, Hippolyta), andSymphony in Three Movements; Peter Boal's staging of Giselle (Zulme); Todd Bolender's Souvenirs; David Dawson's A Million Kisses to my Skin; Ulysses Dove's Vespers; Paul Gibson's Sense of Doubt; Ronald Hynd'sThe Sleeping Beauty (Fairy of Temperament and White Cat); Jiri Kylian's Forgotten Land and Sechs Tänze (Six Dances); Mark Morris' A Garden and Pacific; Alexei Ratmansky's Don Quixote (Juanita); Kent Stowell'sCinderella (Stepmother and Summer), Nutcracker (Flora, Peacock), and Silver Lining; Susan Stroman's TAKE FIVE...More or Less; and Twyla Tharp's Nine Sinatra Songs. She originated leading roles in Kiyon Gaines' M-Pulse, Morris' Kammermusik No. 3, and Margaret Mullin's Lost in Light, and a featured role in Gaines's?{SCHWA}. She has also been featured in Balanchine's Apollo, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Diamonds,Serenade, and Symphony in C; Trisha Brown's Spanish Dance; Hynd's The Merry Widow; Peter Martins'Fearful Symmetries; Marius Petipa's Paquita; Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH; Kent Stowell's Carmina Buranaand Swan Lake; Richard Tanner's Ancient Airs and Dances; and Christopher Wheeldon's Carousel (A Dance).

Ms. Reid's final performances with PNB will be during the run of Kent Stowell's Swan Lake, April 10 - 19, 2015. Tickets and information are available through the PNB Box Office, 206.441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at 301 Mercer Street at Seattle Center.

Photo Credit: Angela Sterling

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