1999 Dance Magazine Awards Go To Horgan For Balanchine Trust, Pischl For Dance Horizon's, D'Amboise, Fredmann, And Mickenzie

Dance Magazine, April, 1999

NEW YORK CITY--The 1999 Dance Magazine Awards will be presented on May 3 at the Asia Society to Barbara Horgan for the Balanchine Trust, Jacques d'Amboise, Martin Fredmann, Kevin McKenzie, and Al Pischl for Dance Horizons Press. The Awards have been given since 1954 to more than 140 men and women who have made significant contributions in the field. Nominations for the yearly Awards are submitted in the late fall by the magazine family--editors, writers, correspondents, and photographers from around the world--and voted on by a panel, chaired by senior editor Clive Barnes, and consisting this year of Robert Greskovic, Iris Fanger, Marilyn Hunt, Hilary Ostlere, Richard Philp, and Don McDonagh.

BARBARA HORGAN FOR THE BALANCHINE TRUST

Created without a prototype in the burgeoning world of dance preservation, The Balanchine Trust has become the model for handling the precious legacy of choreographers around the world. With a hard-earned, well-deserved reputation for generosity, fair dealing, and high standards, the Balanchine Trust has flourished under the direction of Barbara Horgan since its cautious beginnings at the time of George Balanchine's death in 1983. Horgan is central to the Trust's philosophy and existence, and for many years was Balanchine's personal assistant. Horgan was named Balanchine's executor and one of the major heirs to his works; she has been a driving force, along with former ballerina Karin von Aroldingen, in creating the Trust and sharing the Balanchine legacy with companies around the world.

As head of the Trust, Horgan's many duties include overseeing careful consideration of the many requests from ballet companies to present Balanchine's works (at very affordable rates that encourage their use in American regional companies), seeing to the selection of suitable ballet masters and mistresses for staging the ballets, and ensuring that the Balanchine heirs are accommodated according to their legal rights, in addition to consulting with them and with the board of trustees.

Another of Horgan's and the Trust's intentions is gathering and sharing information about Balanchine's work. To this end, a video series of lecture-demonstrations called The Balanchine Essays was created by Merrill Ashley and Suki Schorer (a 1998 Dance Magazine Award recipient). More recently, the Balanchine Foundation has supported the Archive of Lost Choreography, and the Interpreters Archive, directed by Nancy Reynolds.

At the invitation of Peter Martins (a 1977 Award recipient), the Trust is housed in the New York State Theater, home of the New York City Ballet, one of the main recipients of the Trust's legacy.

Now approaching retirement, Horgan has been making plans for a smooth transition so that the great Balanchine heritage will continue to be seen in productions of the highest quality and develop new audiences around the world safely into the next century.

Marilyn Hunt

JACQUES D'AMBOISE

Jacques d'Amboise is one of the most significant of all American-born male classical dancers, and one of the first American dancers to achieve international fame. D'Amboise emerged from the School of American Ballet like a rocket to join New York City Ballet in 1949 at the age of fifteen.

I remember him well at precisely that time, coming on the Royal Opera House stage at Covent Garden, one of the two coryphee boys with the visiting NYCB in Balanchine's Bourree Fantasque. And there was the kid d'Amboise in Apotheosis, a gangle of legs and, underneath a jauntily worn beret, a grin that threatened to devour his face. He was one of those young dancers you couldn't fail to notice. That, I suspect, was the idea.

Right up until his retirement from NYCB in 1984, d'Amboise was one of the glories of American dance, among the most notable of Apollos, creating eighteen Balanchine roles, from Western Symphony in 1954 to Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze in 1980. From his full choreographic debut (he had earlier contributed to the company's "Panamerica" evening) with The Chase in 1963, he became one of the most familiar of the company's resident choreographers. His charming 1964 work, Irish Fantasy, is being revived for NYCB's fiftieth-anniversary season.

Since leaving NYCB he has been the motivating force behind the National Dance Institute, which he founded in 1976 to provide children, and occasionally adults, with the dance experience, culminating in an annual dance event in which they participate. In 1990 he received both the Capezio Award and a MacArthur Foundation Award. In 1995 he earned a Kennedy Center Honor; and in 1998 President Clinton gave him a National Medal of Arts. His wife is former NYCB soloist Carolyn George, and one of their two sons, choreographer Christopher d'Amboise, was also an NYCB principal. Charlotte, one of their twin daughters, is a Broadway star.

Clive Barnes

MARTIN FREDMANN

Professional regional ballet is the heart and soul of American dance today. And the Colorado Ballet exemplifies what can be achieved outside the usual dance centers on the East and West coasts with high standards, determination, and a clear vision. Under the direction of Martin Fredmann since 1987, Denver's Colorado Ballet is America's fastest-rising regional company.