Showers of rose petals fell on the stage as Patricia Barker received one final standing ovation from her admirers. To end her amazing 26-year career with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Barker performed a selection of her favorite pieces with various partners on Sunday night.
Former PNB artistic director and longtime friend Francia Russell joked about Barker's early career at the company, when the 18-year-old ballet dancer's ferocious attack on roles just a little too big for her led to as many falls as triumphs. At one point, Barker's spills on a tour became so notorious, said Russell, that Kent Stowell nicknamed the dancer "Boom-Boom Barker."
But, as Russell and the audience at McCaw Sunday night knew, the sheer grit of those early years paid off. Barker transformed herself into a blond perfection of a ballet dancer. To see her in any of her more than 120 roles with PNB was to think, "Ah yes, this is exactly what the choreographer wanted."
After she celebrated her 20th season with PNB in 2001, Barker's dancing increased in beauty, musicality and strength at an age when most dancers are retiring. Instead, she added to her repertoire such roles as the lead in Balanchine's "Diamonds" (quite appropriate for a lady who always said her favorite place to unwind was Tiffany's).
For her final farewell, Barker selected the fiery "Le Corsaire Pas de Trois" with principal dancers Casey Herd and Stanko Milov, joyful "Midsummer Night's Dream" excerpts with principal dancer Jonathan Porretta as Oberon and retiring principal dancer Christophe Maraval as Titania's Cavalier, Balanchine's iconic "Agon" with principal dancer Olivier Wevers and the gorgeous Act IV "Swan Lake" pas de deux with principal dancer Jeffrey Stanton.
Wisely deciding that she couldn't leave the now slightly teary crowd with Odette's final flight in the mist, Barker returned to the stage for another, more triumphant "Swan Lake" pas de deux with Milov.
As always, Barker's dancing was beautiful in line, completely controlled and, in final moments with her partners, almost heartbreakingly tender. One slender hand patted Wevers comfortingly between the shoulders at the end of "Agon," a gesture that she repeated during her Swan Lake pas de deux with Stanton.
As dozens of flowers were tossed on stage or handed to the prima ballerina absoluta, Barker glowed under the spotlight, throwing her hands out to the rest of the company, inviting the dancers and friends to share a final bow and the end of an era at PNB.
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