Peter Boal is shown at work in his office at Seattle Center.
Laura Marie Rivera
The holiday season at Seattle Center is in full swing. The inaugural Seattle Christmas Market is delighting visitors, the Space Needle has just launched the Loupe Lounge, the trains are running at Winterfest Village in the Armory, dancers are gracing the stage at Pacific Northwest Ballet, and a new author is quietly enjoying the success of his first book.
Peter Boal has been the Artistic Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet since 2005. PNB audience members may already be familiar with his writing from the program notes that he writes for each production. Now, he has channeled his lifelong passions for writing and ballet to create his memoir: Illusions of Camelot.
“It is a book by a dancer, that incorporates dance, but is not about dance. It is about growing up and finding your path in life,” Boal says. Adding, “Anyone can feel that they don’t belong.”
Boal has danced with the greatest ballet companies in America and some of the most notable choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins, and George Balanchine. While dance has played a major role in his story, this book is really about the young boy coming of age in a different time and coming to terms with his father’s addiction.
At a reading and book signing earlier this year, Marcie Sillman wasted no time diving into the meat of the story. “When you were young, it seemed you idolized your father. When did that change?” she asked. Boal tells the sad story of when his father showed up drunk at his performance with New York City Ballet in Saratoga Springs. Although he had grown up in a community that had always covered for his father, the cracks were beginning to show. He loved his father but was angry at the addiction. He recalls, “My father really loved me. He was a great parent, in snippets.”
Boal tells his readers that you are who you are because of the circumstances that make up a person. Growing up in the town of Bedford, he danced in and out of the levels of exclusions and privilege. As a child, he accepted it as the way the world works. But he knew that wasn’t the way he wanted it to be. Ballet became a beacon for Boal and he says it saved him in some ways. He felt it pulled him into a community of greater belonging.
In the world of professional ballet, Boal has shaped PNB into a beacon of inclusivity for the dancers and the community. In addition to being one of the largest and most respected ballet companies in the country, Pacific Northwest Ballet is also one of the most inclusive. While the effort to promote diversity and inclusion was already underway when Boal joined the company, they are currently working to change the landscape of the dance world. Because he remembers feeling different as one of only three boys in his class at School of American Ballet, he knows it is his job to help normalize traditionally excluded dancers. DanceChance is a program for students in Seattle Public Schools who may not have had the opportunity to study classical ballet. PNB has also had highly successful programs for dancers with Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome. And audiences can see one of the most diverse ballet companies performing at McCaw Hall throughout the year.
Illusions of Camelot is available at the PNB gift shop, local bookstores, and online. The Nutcracker runs through December 27. More information and tickets are available at pnb.org.