Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal will give us what we've been waiting for all year: a compelling collection of contemporary ballets that push boundaries and make the form feel alive again. This year, he's presenting world premieres from American choreographers Robyn Mineko Williams and Matthew Neenan, plus Justin Peck's In the Countenance of Kings. My prediction is the new pieces will be romantic, abstract, and slightly nostalgic. Then Peck's piece, enlivened by Sufjan Stevens's swirling, sylvan score, will pull us out of the past and ready us for a newly dawning spring. by Rich Smith