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At Pacific Northwest Ballet on Friday night, the evening began with 11-year-old PNB School student Charlotte Smith, whose beaming smile and effortless grand jeté in the ballet’s opening solo moment spoke to a bright future.

“It could be seen as a form of dance technique, even if it’s not a grand jeté or a tendu.”

In the sinewy 41-year-old ballet dancer’s telling, it wasn’t really such a grand jeté to exit the stage of an iconic opera house and enlist in the Ukrainian army.

When his turn comes, Sakuragi flies across the floor, tossing in at the end a soaring grand jete with one leg elegantly bent; a movement that exudes joy — and, somehow, hope.

That felt like doing my biggest, boldest grand jeté.