After 11 years with Pacific Northwest Ballet, corps de ballet member Jordan Pacitti says he will retire from the Seattle-based company at the end of this season to take up a new career—perfumes.

Pacitti began his Jordan Samuel Fragrances in 2007, creating and selling room fragrance dispensers, bath and body oils, candles, and fragrances. He will enter the esthetics program at Seattle’s Gary Manual Aveda Institute in September.

“Though I am sad to leave, the time has come to move on,” Pacitti said in a PNB press statement. “Thanks to PNB’s Second Stage program [which helps dancers make the transition to post-performance careers], I have been able to start and grow my company.”

Pacitti, who trained at the School of Cleveland Ballet and the School of American Ballet, joined PNB as an apprentice in 1999 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2000. “He may be retiring, but he’s got an invitation to return next December as Drosselmeier” in The Nutcracker, said the company’s artistic director, Peter Boal. “We can’t imagine PNB without him, so we won’t.”

One Response to “Dancer Seeks the Sweet Smell of Success”