Jennie Somogyi to Retire from NYCB This Fall

New York City Ballet announced today that Principal Dancer Jennie Somogyi will retire during the Company's 2015 Fall Season, after a 21-year career with New York City Ballet. Her final performance will take place on Sunday, October 11 at 3 pm at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. She will perform George Balanchine's Liebeslieder Walzer.

Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Somogyi was raised in Alpha, New Jersey and began her ballet training at age seven with Madame Nina Youshkevitch. Somogyi entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, when she was nine years old, and was cast in the leading role of Marie in the Company's production of George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM in her first year. She became an apprentice with NYCB in 1993 and a member of the corps de ballet in 1994. She was promoted to soloist in 1998 and to principal dancer in 2000.

Throughout her career Somogyi has danced featured roles in a variety of works from the Company's unparalleled repertory including ballets by George Balanchine, August Bournonville, Ulysses Dove, Peter Martins, Jerome Robbins, Richard Tanner, and Lynne Taylor-Corbett. In addition she has originated roles in works by Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, Stephen Baynes, Miriam Mahdaviani, Kevin O'Day, and Susan Stroman, among others.

In 2002 Somogyi appeared in the Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of "New York City Ballet's Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography," dancing in Taylor-Corbett's Chiaroscuro and O'Day's Viola Alone. In 2002 the Princess Grace Foundation awarded Somogyi its highest honor, the Statue Award. She is also the recipient of the Mae L. Wien Award and the Martin E. Segal Award.