George Balanchine famously wrote, that ballet “is a woman.” Four of his most celebrated women—Allegra Kent, Gloria Govrin, Kay Mazzo and Merrill Ashley—appeared onstage at Jacques d’Amboise’s National Dance Institute Monday evening to celebrate his legacy. The sold-out program, called “Balanchine’s Ballerinas,” included performances of excerpts from ballets closely associated with these women and a […]

Dancers remember New York City Ballet’s historic 1962 tour.     Allegra Kent at curtain call with Balanchine, St. Petersburg. Photo by Bert Stern, Courtesy Stern.     Fifty years ago New York City Ballet toured five cities in the USSR—Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Kiev, Tbilisi, and Baku. By any definition it was a historic […]

Each of the 2009 Dance Magazine Awards recipients has made a contribution to dance that is both unique and outsized: Jason Samuels Smith, the hard-hitting tapper who cares about community; Allegra Kent, a legendary ballerina who now teaches, coaches, and writes; Ohad Naharin, who revolutionized international dance; and Sara Rudner, who gave postmodernism a spiritual, […]