New York City Ballet turns fifty - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Marilyn Hunt

NEW YORK CITY--In its fiftieth-anniversary year, New York City Ballet pauses to look at its past and present--if a company that will dance one hundred different ballets, including five premieres and several revivals between now and summer 1999 can be said to pause.

The winter season at the New York State Theater begins November 24 with a benefit gala reenacting the company's famous first program at City Center on October 11, 1948: founder-choreographer George Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, Symphony in C, and Orpheus. Quintessential Balanchine ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq is to be honored and all former and current company members are invited to take part in a series of curtain calls. (The event is preceded two nights earlier by an alumni reunion.)

The succeeding weeks of Balanchine's Nutcracker will include special appearances, followed by a week of Balanchine's "black-and-white" ballets, January 5 to 10; repertory weeks with a new ballet in honor of Balanchine's birthday on January 22 and revivals of his Bugaku and Jacques d'Amboise's Irish Fantasy; and a week of the late Jerome Robbins's ballets set to European and Russian music, February 23-29.

The spring season, April 29 to June 27, begins with the company's first performance of Martins's Swan Lake (to be broadcast on Dance in America May 5), ends with Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream, and features a series of festivals: in honor of Igor Stravinsky, with a new ballet by Christopher Wheeldon; Tchaikovsky, with Aurora's Wedding and a revival of Robbins's 1988 Andantino; and American music, with a new ballet to the music of Wynton Marsalis by Martins and one to Duke Ellington as arranged by Marsalis (choreographer TBA); as well as revivals of Eliot Feld's The Unanswered Question, a Hershy Kay tribute, and programs of Robbins works.

Anniversary celebrations will include guest conductors, singers, and dancers, as well as evenings dedicated to individual composers. The company's collaborations with great writers and other artists over the years are highlighted in a new book, TRIBUTES: Celebrating Fifty Years of New York City Ballet, published by William Morrow. An exhibition, "Dance in the City: Fifty Years of New York City Ballet," will take place April 7 to October 17 at the New-York Historical Society, organized by Lynn Garafola and Eric Foner.

The company is extending its educational and outreach work for this special year and will hold a series of Monday evening seminars featuring former stars of the company. Martins said that retired stars Merrill Ashley, Suzanne Farrell, Melissa Hayden, Arthur Mitchell, and Edward Villella have already agreed to take part in the seminars.

The celebrations will continue through the summer season in Saratoga Springs, New York, with exhibitions at the National Museum of Dance.