Pacific Northwest Ballet School student Zeheng Huang as the Prince in a scene from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, choreographed by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Angela Sterling.
Zeheng Huang has been picked to play the Prince for the Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB)’s Nutcracker, now showing through Dec. 28 at McCaw Hall. “He may be one of the very few Asian males for the character,” his mother Lilian Chen told the Northwest Asian Weekly. There had been several Asian female dancers in the past for the Nutcracker.
A student at Denny International Middle School, Huang, 12, has been dancing with the PNB since he was 8-years old.
Chen said her son would dance and jump in the house as if he was on stage. PNB came to the Seattle Public Schools to recruit students a few years ago. After an audition,Huang was picked to enroll in the PNB with a scholarship. Recently, Huang was invited to try out for the Nutcracker role. Huang didn’t expect to be picked. But his mother knew he would be because he is passionate about ballet and practices often at home. Huang is one of the two alternates for the prince role. Huang has also performed in other shows prior to Nutcracker.
Jeheng was a very elegant prince all the way through the ballet.