Dead-Sexy Dancer Leaving PNB

Our Sandi Kurtz reports:

Careers in dance are notoriously short, and so dancers often move when a new opportunity presents itself, which is why Casey Herd will be leaving Pacific Northwest Ballet at the end of this season for the Dutch National Ballet, a bigger company with even more performances. Herd has been at PNB almost all of his professional life, starting as a corps member in 1999, becoming a principal in 2006. He has an interesting persona on stage, a kind of sunny disposition with shadows underneath. His performance in Jerome Robbins' Fancy Free is an example -- just a happy-go-lucky sailor on shore leave until he dances for the girl, and comes across with a suggestive rhumba. His recent appearances in Rom�o et Juliette take that even further. As Tybalt, he was commanding, aggressive and dead sexy -- the women sitting near me in the audience were almost swooning at the intermission.

By chance I sat next to his mother at the performance in 2006 where his promotion was announced, and she told me about taking him to his first classes in Salt Lake City, patiently traveling on the city bus. She was thrilled to be here, and thrilled to see her son dancing. Lucky for us, we'll have a few more chances to see him as well, maybe even in Fancy Free, on the all-Robbins program later this spring.