Peter Martin News

The School of American Ballet announces the 2014 Winter Ball at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater on Monday, March 3, 2014, sponsored for the seventh consecutive year by legendary French Maison Van Cleef & Arpels. Cocktails begin at 7pm and dinner will commence at 8pm, followed by The Encore dessert and dancing at 9pm. Attire is black tie. To purchase tickets, a table, or for more information, please contact Natalie Schweizer at nschweizer@sab.org or (212) 769-6610.

Rolex presents NEW YORK NEW YORK - Career Transition For Dancers' 29th Anniversary Jubilee on Monday, October 6, 2014 at 7:00 pm at New York City Center, 131 West 55 Street (btwn. 6th & 7th Aves) NYC followed by dinner at The Grand Ballroom at The Hilton New York. From Broadway to the Battery, NEW YORK NEW YORK will take you on a rockin' ride through the most inimitable, iconic entertainment capital of the world - a mecca for arts and culture. Dance with us around our town, the most diverse city alive! This one-night-only entertainment event of the season features the best talent in theatre and dance performing with the Jubilee Orchestra. The show is produced and directed by Ann Marie DeAngelo.

Scarsdale Ballet Studio, Westchester's premier destination for classical and contemporary ballet training presents Coppelia on March 29 and 30 at the Dance Lab at SUNY Purchase College.

The iconic festival, Newport Jazz Festival, turns 60 and takes the show on a road with Philadelphia performance and debut at the Merriam Theater on Sunday, March 9 at 8 p.m. The Newport Jazz Festival: Now 60 pays homage to jazz luminaries such as Billie Holiday, Dizzie Gillespie, and Duke Ellington, whose classic jazz standards where first recorded at the festival, reinterpreted through the lens of contemporary jazz artists. The program also provides a progressive exploration of global jazz with Brazilian, Gypsy, Latin influences.

New York City Ballet announced today that Zachary Catazaro has been promoted to Soloist. Peter Martins, NYCB's Ballet Master in Chief, made the promotion following the Company's rehearsals on Thursday, February 13.

With Fashion Week 2014 under way in the tents at Lincoln Center from February 6th to 13th, New York City Ballet dusted off Peter Martins' 2012 tribute to iconic designer Valentino for the evening performance at Koch Theater on Saturday, February 8th. A description of 'Bal de Couture' on the company's web site enthused that we would feel as though we were 'on a runway at the ballet'. Not so much. The unwieldy black and white ball gowns with red petticoats, described in a handout available in the lobby as 'dazzling', managed to make the svelte ballerinas appear to be thick-waisted as they maneuvered through Peter Martins' uninspired choreography along with male dancers in black suits. Three dancers in tutus darted in and out of the scenes set to the waltz and the polonaise from Tschaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, looking as though they had ended up at the wrong party. The central section, a cliched love triangle to Tschaikovsky's Elegie in G for Strings, went on far too long - as often happens in ballets by Martins.

In March, New York's funniest show Celebrity Autobiography will welcome to the cast music icon Debbie Harry, The View's Sherri Shepherd, actor/comedians Janeane Garofalo (The Truth About Cats & Dogs) and Mario Cantone (Sex and the City) and actor Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid, My Cousin Vinny), with four shows on Saturday, March 8 at 9pm, Monday, March 10 at 9pm, Friday, March 14 at 9:15pm, and Saturday, March 15 at 7pm at Stage 72 (158 West 72nd Street). Tickets are $60, $45 and $35 and can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by phone at 212.868.4444.

The annual Emory Jazz Fest returns February 6-8 with performances, public master classes and an open rehearsal.

There's still time to buy good tickets to see ON KENTUCKY AVENUE on Superbowl Sunday, Feb. 2, at 3 PM at Stage 72/Triad, 152 West 72nd Street in Manhattan and get home and watch the Superbowl on TV in the comfort of your home at 6 PM!

Ballet NY presents its 2014 Season, including In the Garden of Souls, the company premieres of Kinderszenen, Dreams, and excerpts from Urban Study, from April 15-17, 2014 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55th Street, NYC (at Ninth Avenue). All performances are at 7:30pm. Tickets are $26 ($16 for students and seniors) and are available at www.smarttix.com or by phone at 212-868-4444.

Nearly 31 years have passed since George Balanchine, the prolific and pioneering 20th century choreographer, died on April 30th 1983. Yet the New York City Ballet, the company he co-founded with Lincoln Kirstein 80 years ago, continues to revere and remember him with equal parts fondness and awe. That legacy of love and respect for Mr. B was especially evident on January 25th 2014, the 4th annual celebration of "Saturday at the Ballet with George" in honor of his birthday. He was actually born on January 22nd 1904 but scheduling the event on a Saturday allows for a daylong series of workshops and performances, all of them affordable and some of them free.

In order to avoid conflict with the Super Bowl on Sunday evening, February 2, the producers of ON KENTUCKY AVENUE, the musical revue based loosely on fact and mostly fiction about the people and performers who took the stage and filled the tables at the majestic Club Harlem 'on Kentucky Avenue' in the north section of Atlantic City from the 1930s until the late 1980s, has changed its three performance schedule at STAGE 72/THE TRIAD, 158 West 72nd Street. The new schedule is as follows: Sunday, Feb, 2, at 3PM, Monday, Feb, 3 at 7pm and Sunday, Feb. 16, at 3 PM. The shows are being presented as part of Black History Month celebration.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic leadership of Glenn Edgerton, will present its first-ever mixed repertory program devoted to the work of a single choreographer during the Spring Series, March 13-16, 2014. This engagement's four works by Sarabande (1990), for an all-male ensemble and set to Bach's second partita for solo violin with electronically manipulated live vocals; and Falling Angels (1989), for a cast of eight women and set to part one of Steve Reich's phased-percussion composition, Drumming, to be performed live by Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble- in-Residence at the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

The annual Emory Jazz Fest returns February 6-8 with performances, public master classes and an open rehearsal.

Celebrity Series of Boston will present Newport Jazz Festival: NOW 60, on Thursday, February 13, 2014, at 8pm at Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue Boston. Sponsored by Donna and Mike Egan. Media partner is Boston Public Radio 89.7 WGBH.

This month, New York's funniest show Celebrity Autobiography welcomes to the cast music icon Debbie Harry, The View's Sherri Shepherd, and actor Ralph Macchio. The first show took place last night, January 13, and the next is set for this Friday, January 17 at 9pm at Stage 72 (158 West 72nd Street). Tickets are $60, $45 and $35 and can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by phone at 212.868.4444. Check out a look back at last night's performance below!

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College's 2013-14 season continues with The Beauty of Ballet, a free lecture demonstration presented by the School of American Ballet (SAB), on Saturday, March 8 at 2pm. This event is free, with no ticket or reservation required.

Lee Nolting, artistic director of COCAdance, has mentored dozens of promising young students during her 35 years at COCA, with many going on to earn top spots at world-renowned dance companies. Among her former students is Antonio Douthit-Boyd, 32, a principal dancer with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which has performed for more than 23 million people worldwide. When Nolting receives an Excellence in the Arts award at the 2014 St. Louis Arts Awards on January 20, Douthit-Boyd will perform in a swirling ballet duet in tribute to her. His dance partner will be Alicia Graf Mack, a nationally recognized dance professional and Alvin Ailey principal dancer who at one time taught alongside Nolting at COCA.

In January, New York's funniest show Celebrity Autobiography will welcome to the cast two-time Tony Award-winner Matthew Broderick, music icon Debbie Harry, The View's Sherri Shepherd, actor Ralph Macchio, and four-time Oscar-nominated actress Marsha Mason, with two shows on Monday, January 13 at 9pm and Friday, January 17 at 9pm at Stage 72 (158 West 72nd Street). Tickets are $60, $45 and $35 and can be purchased online at www.SmartTix.com or by phone at 212.868.4444.

ON KENTUCKY AVENUE, a musical revue based loosely on fact and mostly fiction about the people and performers who took the stage and filled the tables at the majestic Club Harlem 'on Kentucky Avenue' in the north section of Atlantic City from the 1930s until the late 1980s, will make its NYC commercial stage debut at STAGE72/THE TRIAD, 158 West 72nd Street, on Sunday, February 2, with performances at 3pm and 7pm and Monday, February 3 at 7pm in honor of Black History Month.