Dance dreams HOMEGROWN BALLERINA STRIVES FOR PROFESSIONAL STAGE By JONATHAN BILYK | Photos by RON MCKINNEY
A year ago, Catherine Lasak was fairly certain of two things: She would be studying ballet under the tutelage of some of the world’s best dance instructors, and she would be in New York. While the first came to pass, the second did not, as Lasak – by a turn of events she did not foresee in the spring of 2016 – opted to pass up studying dance at New York’s prestigious Juilliard Academy and, instead, chose to study dance on the Pacific coast in the Professional Division program at the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle – or PNB, as Lasak and other dancers know it. “I thought I just wanted to be in New York, but when the chance came up to study [at PNB], I had to take it,” Lasak says. “PNB is one of the best companies in the world, and definitely one of the best in the U.S It actually means a whole lot more to be [at PNB], from the perspective of the dance world.” In 2016, Lasak, then a senior at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, was among a handful of dancers from across the country selected by Juilliard to be admitted to the arts school’s ballet dance program. However, in the months that followed, Lasak also was accepted to participate in the summer internship program at PNB, during which students auditioned for the chance to be among 17 female dancers admitted into the company’s first-year Professional Division – a specialized training program created to prepare dancers for the rigor of professional dance.
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