BY KAREN BOSSICK

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sadly, this weekend’s Ballet Sun Valley Festival has been cancelled due to temperatures possibly dipping as low as 39 degrees in the early morning hours of Saturday and Sunday that could make for unsafe performance conditions.

BUT, J.McLaughlin along with Bobbie Herrell and Kathy Jones are hosting a Sip & Shop from 1 to 5 p.m. today—Friday, June 26—to benefit Ballet Sun Valley. The shop is at 520 E. 4th St. in Ketchum near Atkinsons Market and Ketchum Town Square.

The shop will debut J.McLaughlin’s exclusive collaboration with decorator Mark D. Sikes at the event. The show is full of beautiful dresses in an iconic wildflower dragonfly print, along with lots of crisp navy and white—perfect for Sun Valley parties, said store manager Sarah Howe.

“We were so sorry to learn that the festival was canceled due to weather,” she added. “We love Kelli (Quinlan) and the team at Ballet Sun Valley and know that they, along with the artists, volunteers, board members and others spent countless hours coordinating countless moving pieces for this special festival for all of us to enjoy.”

Here’s what we’re missing. Ballet Sun Valley hopes to invite the company back to Sun Valley in the future:

Pacific Northwest Ballet will perform the World Premiere of a new work by acclaimed choreographer Jessica Lang at the 2026 Ballet Sun Valley Festival this weekend at the Sun Valley Pavilion.

The Seattle-based ballet will perform the new work, co-commissioned by the ballet company and Ballet Sun Valley, on Sunday. Dancers will also perform Lang’s “ZigZag” on Saturday night and “The Calling” on Sunday night.

The dance company will present two completely different shows each night.

Saturday’s program will feature “Rubies” from George Balanchine’s “Jewels,” “The Window” by Dani Rowe and “ZigZag,” which pairs 10 of Bennett’s show tunes with Lang’s jazzy, breezily intricate choreography. The piece will be performed by 14 dancers in stylish mid-century costumes.

The Sunday program will feature Lang’s new dance, which was conceived during a residency at the Ernest and Mary Hemingway house in Ketchum. It also will feature “Red Angels” by Ulysses Dove,” Lang’s “The Calling,” and “Nine Sinatra Songs” by Twyla Tharp.

Tharp created “Nine Sinatra Songs,” which includes “My Way,” ’ as an exploration of love in all its stages. Dancers will perform a tapestry of swing, cha-cha, tango and ballroom dance dressed in stunning costumes by Oscar de la Renta.

“Nine Sinatra Songs” and other pieces were selected to buoy audiences’ spirits, said Peter Boal, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s artistic director: “It’s guaranteed to make you feel good. It’s ’go-home-happy’ gold!” 

The Festival orchestra will be led by Maestro Martin West, music director and conductor of the San Francisco Ballet.

Thirty-eight Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers are set to perform over the weekend. Among them, Elle Macy, promoted to principal dancer in 2021 after performing in Jessica Lang’s “Ghost Variations.”

Macy started dancing at her mother’s dance studio in Southern California before continuing her training at the School of American Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theatre, American Ballet Theatre and, finally, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s school.

She says she loves Pacifici Northwest Ballet’s eclectic repertoire: “Everything is interesting, if you think about it enough—the way people emote, the way animals move, the feeling of wind, the sound of music.”

Tickets for this weekend’s performances start at $35 and can be purchased online at https://www.balletsunvalley.org/ or by calling Sun Valley Resort Recreation office at 208-622-2135.