Even outside the kitchen, Brunson is now Stage to her restaurant buddies. She clearly relishes this new identity, and it makes perfect sense. No matter how you pronounce it, Brunson, who has a megawatt smile and a presence her former boss calls "winning and sexy," has always owned the stage.

Nevertheless, her colleagues at Pacific Northwest Ballet were stunned when she retired last week from the company's corps de ballet to pursue a career in the culinary arts. PNB artistic director Peter Boal said his first reaction was "a big gulp."

She has been at the Royal Ballet for three years and has had smaller lead roles, including a widely praised performance in "Infra" last year.

But this will be will be her first full-length main role. "All the roles I've done so far have been in 20 minute ballets in triple bills," she said.

On Nov. 2, according to the prosecution, Peter canceled a rental at the Professional Ballet School on Harbor Boulevard because he said the dog had fleas. The woman reported the incident to the Sheriff’s Office which passed it to the District Attorney’s Office for further investigation.
Under the law, the animal can only be excluded “if it poses a direct threat or fundamental alteration of the services offered by the public accommodation,” such as a hospital’s intensive care unit.

Choreographer Michael Lowe couldn't say no when the Oakland Ballet asked him to step in as a guest artistic director in the wake of founder Ronn Guidi's sudden resignation in April. Lowe became a star dancer under the direction of the much-admired Guidi, who had returned in 2007 to resurrect the company that had lost its mojo and folded two years earlier.

Lowe and another Oakland Ballet veteran, ballerina Jenna McClintock, have been hired on an interim basis to keep the company dancing until a permanent artistic director is found to succeed Guidi, whose unexpected departure for "personal reasons" resulted in the cancellation of a planned spring program celebrating the centennial of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Now, under the guest artistic directorship of Lowe and McClintock, the remainder of the 2009 season will consist of a two-night program in October featuring the work of noted local choreographers, among them Val Caniparoli and Alonzo King, and a "Nutcracker" produced in collaboration with Peninsula Ballet Theatre.

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Another triple bill is scheduled Feb. 19-21 at the FSU Center with an encore of Andre Prokovsky’s “Vespri,” as a tribute to the choreographer who died in August. “Vespri” was last performed by the company in the 2007-2008 season. The program also will include a selection of pas de deuxs and solos from the classical repertoire including Anna Pavlova’s “The Dragonfly” and “The Bronze Idol” from “La Bayardere.” It also will include Dominic Walsh’s “I Napoletani.” Walsh, whose “Trilogy: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” was presented last season, is joining the company as resident choreographer.

The company will be busy in April with two weekends of performances. April 2-3 at the Opera House will feature encore performances of Renato Paroni’s “Rococo Variations” and John Cranko’s “Pineapple Poll, and the debut of Christopher Wheeldon’s “There Where She Loved.” Wheeldon, a former dancer and resident choreographer with the New York City Ballet, now has his own company based at New York’s City Center and Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London.