Please Don’t Go

Carla Körbes just announced her retirement at the end of the season. This is terrible news for ballet lovers, especially for those of us who live far from Seattle, her home these last ten years, ever since leaving New York City Ballet for Pacific Northwest. We haven’t seen nearly enough of her. She has such a radiant quality, and such an instinctual musicality, and her manner is so pure and unforced–all qualities that are incredibly rare. More troubling still are her apparent reasons for retiring: “I have done the company lifestyle for 16 years, and ballet has changed. It is evolving, and we’re being pushed in ways that just doesn’t feel like it’s working for me right now,” she told Gia Kourlas in the Times. Could this ever-evolving athleticism be shortening the careers of our great ballerinas? Let’s hope not. In any case, her departure will be a huge loss.

She is one of the loveliest people to speak to, as well. Here is our interview for DanceTabs, from last year.