PNB's current program, ALL BALANCHINE, highlights the range and creativity George Balanchine brought to all of his work. The three featured ballets (Prodigal Son, Square Dance, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto) are selected from different periods of Balanchine's career to showcase his full breadth and depth as a choreographer. But if you were a Balanchine ballet, which would you be? Answer the questions in this quick quiz to reveal your result!
To capture Balanchine’s contribution to ballet in America in a few paragraphs is impossible, but I’ll attempt to scratch the surface. Balanchine, often in partnership with benefactor and arts impresario Lincoln Kirstein, founded the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet. These institutions served as his dance laboratories. In these humble studios, with the help of dancers, musicians, and fellow artists, revelatory discoveries in ballet technique and dance-making came to life. Dancers hold Balanchine’s ballets in a place of reverence. That is especially true of PNB dancers, who enjoy a wealth of Balanchine repertoire and possess an innate technique and musicality acquired at schools like ours...
George Balanchine’s Square Dance is a fascinating combination of two surprising elements: American square dancing and classical ballet. Balanchine (1904-1983) explained, “I have always liked watching American folk dances, especially in my trips to the West, and it occurred to me that it would be possible to combine these two different types of dance, the folk and the classic, in one work.” Today on the PNB Blog, we’ll explore how Balanchine combined these two styles of dance to make one beloved ballet, including fascinating details about the original version with a square dance caller onstage!
The Balanchine Foundation has conducted recorded interviews with dancers and stagers of Balanchine’s works like Maria Tallchief, Suzanne Farrell, Arthur Mitchell, Patricia Wilde, and more. The Balanchine Foundation’s YouTube Channel is a seemingly bottomless resource of amazing interviews. Below are just a few videos from The Balanchine Foundation about […]
Anyone ever heard of Lincoln Kirstein? It’s okay if you haven’t; even George Balanchine didn’t know who he was when Kirstein walked up to him in Paris in 1933. In the post-Diaghilev era in Europe, Balanchine was trying to find footing as a choreographer. He had just presented his new venture, titled Les […]
Blog by PNB dancer Cecilia Iliesiu.
PNB’s opening night was magical! There had been a few rough rehearsals with tired bodies and swift musical tempos, but once that curtain went up Wednesday evening, we just danced!
Yesterday (Tuesday) was our one-and-only full rehearsal day before our four-days of consecutive Dress Rehearsals & Performances coming up. Company dancers warmed-up and rehearsed in the beautiful City Center Studio 4. My schedule for yesterday was as follows: