Patricia Barker retired from the Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) at the end of the 2006-07 season. She was 43. She had been a principal dancer for two decades, a member of the company for 25 years and was previously a student at its school.

Dance has been part of Barker’s life since she was 7, when she took local dance classes that included hula, jazz, tap and more. Movement was her form of expression. A teacher recognized her talents, and at 15, she went to Boston to study. But, Barker came back to Seattle to study with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1979, because Boston seemed too far from her home in Central Washington State.

She joined the company as an apprentice in 1981, was promoted to the corps de ballet in 1982, soloist in 1984 and principal in 1986, when she was 23.