The February 1956 issue of Dance Magazine marked Maria Tallchief’s fourth of six appearances on our cover. (The total increases to seven if the April 1961 cover, simply displaying the names of that year’s Dance Magazine Award recipients, is counted.) By then, her career, which had started in 1942 at the Ballet Russe de Monte […]

It’s a short month, but February is jam-packed. From a double-helping of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker to a long-absent Balanchine solo created for the late Paul Taylor, here are the shows that most piqued our interest. The Lost Episode Michael Trusnovec Erin Baiano, Courtesy NYCB NEW YORK CITY When Martha Graham and George Balanchine collaborated […]

In the October 1969 issue of Dance Magazine, we spoke with Jacques d’Amboise, then 20 years into his career with New York City Ballet. Though he became a principal dancer in 1953, the star admitted that it hadn’t all been smooth sailing. “I knew that I was terrible in my first Apollo,” he told us, […]

On August 19, 1929, shockwaves were felt throughout the dance world as news spread that impresario Sergei Diaghilev had died. The founder of the Ballets Russes rewrote the course of ballet history as the company toured Europe and the U.S., championing collaborations with modernist composers, artists and designers such as Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso and […]

In a large practice studio inside Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater, Suzanne Farrell watches quietly as New York City Ballet principals Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen work through a series of supported poses. As Janzen kneels to face her, Mearns brushes through to croisé arabesque, extending her leg high behind her. “I wouldn’t penché there,” says […]

In a large practice studio inside Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater, Suzanne Farrell watches quietly as New York City Ballet principals Sara Mearns and Russell Janzen work through a series of supported poses. As Janzen kneels to face her, Mearns brushes through to croisé arabesque, extending her leg high behind her. “I wouldn’t penché there,” says […]

When George Balanchine’s full-length Don Quixote premiered in 1965, critics and audiences alike viewed the ballet as a failure. Elaborate scenery and costumes framed mawkish mime passages, like one in which the ballerina washed the Don’s feet and dried them with her hair. Its revival in 2005 by Suzanne Farrell, the ballerina on whom it […]

It was only a matter of time before dance super couple Sara Mearns and Joshua Bergasse did a major project together. After all, the newlyweds first met when Mearns, a New York City Ballet star, was being considered for a part on the TV show “Smash,” which Bergasse was choreographing. They hit it off, but […]