When Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Elizabeth Murphy takes her final bow on June 7, it may be the end of her 20-year performance career, but she isn’t leaving the ballet world. This summer Murphy will continue her work with LABL Active, a company she founded more than a decade ago as Label Dancewear and sold in 2025. The 37-year-old mother of two young daughters admits that being a professional dancer and a mom didn’t leave a lot of time to run a business, but she is staying active as the main designer.
Now that she has decided to step away from performing, Murphy will work closely with LABL’s new owner as the company grows. She’ll remain connected to PNB through her husband, Reed Nakayama, the ballet company’s lighting designer.
Ballet was the place Murphy, a Massachusetts native, first called home. She has been dancing since she was 2 years old, spending her early professional career at Utah’s Ballet West before joining PNB in 2011. When Murphy learned to sew at 18, it offered her a creative alternative. She credits her ballet career with teaching her the resiliency needed to navigate business challenges.
At both Ballet West and PNB, Murphy was cast mainly in story ballets. Then, in 2016, she appeared in a featured duet in Alejandro Cerrudo’s Little mortal jump, a contemporary ballet she reprised this season. She calls the role pivotal to her artistic development, teaching her how to move beyond classical ballet. The ballet’s reappearance this season, along with an opportunity to dance the title role in Giselle one last time, gave Murphy the fitting moment to retire.
She plans to pursue certification in Pilates instruction, and in the future she’d like to explore physical therapy and teach ballet. For now, she’s focused on family. “Ballet classes usually start right after school’s over,” Murphy says.
“Contemporary ballet surprised me. I felt vulnerable. I learned how to surrender to the art. I felt a call to be present in the moment, how to let my guard down. I had to surrender myself to the art, not the rules.”
“Leaving dance will be hard. It’s a huge part of who I am. I didn’t plan on stumbling across my calling as a 2-year-old. It’s a lot to let go of. I thought about leaving PNB earlier”—immediately after the birth of her second child—“but I felt I would be moving out of fear about the future. I hope to always move forward in love, not fear.”
“There’s so many things you can learn from dance. It’s taught me that you can rise when faced with a challenge. You have the ability to regroup and reshape. You can have a different outcome from the same set of cards you’re dealt.”
Photo by Lindsay Thomas, Courtesy Pacific Northwest Ballet.
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