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Posts Tagged ‘PNW Ballet’

Peter Boal on “Moving Moments” Podcast!

Wednesday, August 16th, 2023

Artistic Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and Director of the company’s affiliated school, Peter Boal was a Principal Dancer with New York City Ballet for over 20 years. Peter shares with Alicia the importance of moving to Fleetwood Mac in his childhood living room, how he lived a “double life” until classmates saw him perform in The Nutcracker, and what it was like to learn from famed dancer, choreographer, and director Jerome Robbins. He also discusses his arrival at PNB, how he has worked to broaden audience involvement and widen the company’s approach to inclusivity. Peter discusses his new memoir and gives Alicia a valuable parenting tip.

Listen to Moving Moments and Peter’s interview:
Apple: https://rb.gy/fqf48s
Spotify: https://rb.gy/8o7ll9

Moving Moments podcast is your ticket to candid conversations featuring the dance world’s most accomplished and groundbreaking artists. Join Dean and Director of Dance at The Juilliard School Alicia Graf Mack as she sits down with her closest colleagues and friends to discuss the creative process and living a purposeful life in dance.

Learn more at their website here: artfulnarrativesmedia.com

PRESS RELEASE: Illusions of Camelot

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023

FROM BOYHOOD TO NUTCRACKER PRINCE: 

Peter Boal paints a star-studded picture of what it takes to make it as the Principal Dancer for the New York City Ballet and beyond

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, New York — Peter’s story starts in the pastoral and privileged town of Bedford, New York: a rare enclave 40 miles north of New York City where private schools, country clubs, and families hold their own rules and secrets. Within the town, views of race, morality, and sexuality are unspoken yet evident. Meanwhile, at home, Peter and his family are left to grapple with his father’s alcoholism and untimely death. As a young boy finding his way, Peter soon turns to ballet. Ultimately his passion becomes a beacon, leading him to work at the New York City Ballet as a teenager, living on his own while discovering the pitfalls and pleasures Manhattan has to offer.

Throughout Peter’s deeply personal work, you’ll step onto the club house floor during ballroom dancing lessons in Bedford, into the studios of the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, and onto the stage in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker as Peter performs the title role of the Nutcracker Prince. For all the laughter these stories offer, gravity is everywhere.

Peter’s journey takes us to the start of a storied career as a dancer with the New York City Ballet and leaves us with insights into the unique path of an artist and individual shaped by environment, circumstance, and family.

“A multi-functional memoir. It’s a generous, grateful account of discovering ballet as a career; and it’s about the discovery of friends, sexuality, values, and manners…In Boal’s writing, every word and every sentence matter. Subtle variations of tone take the reader, enchantingly, between charm, pain, and humour, often in the course of a paragraph.”

— Alastair Macaulay, 
New York Times, Chief Dance Critic 2007-2018

Illusions of Camelot

Peter Boal – May 2023

ISBN: 9780825309830

Hardcover: $24.95 || Ebook: $14.99

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Beaufort Books is an independent publisher based in New York City. Beaufort publishes a mix of non-fiction and fiction titles, with about 15–20 new titles each year. Since 2007, we’ve published four New York Times bestsellers.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Emma St. John at emma@beaufortbooks.com.

Illusions of Camelot — Press ReleaseDownload

Peter Boal

Peter Boal was raised in Bedford, New York. At the age of nine, he began studying ballet at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet. Mr. Boal became a member of New York City Ballet’s corps de ballet in 1983 and became a principal dancer in 1989. In 2005, he retired from New York City Ballet after a 22-year career with the company. Mr. Boal was also a full-time faculty member at the School of American Ballet from 1997 to 2005. In 2003, he founded Peter Boal and Company, a critically acclaimed chamber ensemble.

Illusions of Camelot

Illusions of Camelot

From the artistic director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet and former principal dancer for the New York City Ballet comes an unforgettable memoir about one artist’s journey from boyhood to ballet.

Peter’s story starts in the pastoral and privileged town of Bedford, New York: a rare enclave 40 miles north of New York City where private schools, country clubs, and families hold their own rules and secrets. Within the town, views of race, morality, and sexuality are unspoken yet evident. Meanwhile, at home, Peter and his family are left to grapple with his father’s alcoholism and untimely death. As a young boy finding his way, Peter soon turns to ballet. Ultimately his passion becomes a beacon, leading him to work at the New York City Ballet as a teenager, living on his own while discovering the pitfalls and pleasures Manhattan has to offer.

Throughout Peter’s deeply personal work, you’ll meet Hattie Lindsay, Peter’s caregiver, whose love for Peter matches her disdain for Henry, the family dog. You’ll step onto the club house floor during ballroom dancing lessons in Bedford, into the studios of the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, and onto the stage in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker as Peter performs the title role of the Nutcracker Prince. For all the laughter these stories offer, gravity is everywhere. Moments by Balanchine’s hospital bedside, or in the AIDS-ravaged ward at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital as a loved one’s life passes away are told with painful honesty and raw hurt.

Peter’s journey takes us to the start of a storied career as a dancer with the New York City Ballet and leaves us with insights into the unique path of an artist and individual shaped by environment, circumstance, and family.

Author: Peter Boal

Hardcover: $24.95 USD (ISBN: 9780825309830)

Ebook: $14.99 USD (ISBN: 9780825308628)

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY/ Personal Memoirs

250 pages

Order Here: