American Ballet Theatre News

I was privileged to see American Ballet Theatre performing Giselle twice this season.

Carmen de Lavallade's career as a dancer, choreographer, and stage and film actress spans more than six decades working with luminaries such as Lena Horne, Josephine Baker, Harry Belafonte, Alvin Ailey, and many others. She already holds the distinction of the longest Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival performing career on record, having made her Pillow debut with Lester Horton Dance Theatre in 1953 and performing at the Festival as recently as 2004 (with Paradigm), and she now extends that record by another decade. In the world premiere of her new solo show, As I Remember It, de Lavallade combines powerful movement and poignant storytelling to weave a theatrical memoir about her venerable life on stage. This exclusive engagement opens the 2014 Festival in the Doris Duke Theatre with a limited three-show run, this weekend, June 20-22.

The producers of ON THE TOWN announced today that Megan Fairchild(New York City Ballet Principal Dancer), Alysha Umphress (American Idiot) and Elizabeth Stanley (Company) will join the critically-acclaimed Broadway revival of ON THE TOWN, directed by John Rando (Tony Award® for Urinetown) and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse (Emmy Award winner for 'Smash'). Fairchild, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, will make her Broadway debut playing 'Ivy Smith'. Umphress will play 'Hildy' and Stanley will play 'Claire', both reprising their performances from last summer's acclaimed Barrington Stage production.

The American Ballet Theatre (ABT) has confirmed that its full company of dancers will travel to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) to perform in the exclusive Brisbane season which runs from 28 August to 7 September 2014.

Following a successful opening week of Festival 2013, Dance Theatre of Harlem returns with an all-new program. DTH gave its first professional performance at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1970; since that date, DTH and the Pillow have enjoyed a longstanding and fruitful artistic relationship. The company, led by Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, performs Donald Byrd's smooth yet power-packed contemporary ballet Contested Space, which features a plethora of solos and duets. past-carry-forward, created for DTH by Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, conveys the spirit and significance of the Harlem Renaissance. The cornerstone of this dynamic evening is the late choreographer Ulysses Dove's moving, elegiac ballet Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven, danced to "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten" by Arvo Part. The company appears in a special seven-show engagement in the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob's Pillow, July 9-13.

Casting for the seventh and eighth weeks of American Ballet Theatre's 2014 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie.

American Ballet Theatre's premiere of the Royal Ballet's Cinderella was a beautifully romantic and astonishingly comedic whirlwind of a fairytale. With Frederick Ashton's cutting-edge choreography set to Sergei Prokofiev's vibrant score, American Ballet Theatre delivered a ballet enjoyable for all ages.

Coming to Manhattan's Cabrini Rep this June - Soul of a Blue Butterfly; the true story of a young Swedish woman en route to Jerusalem to discover her roots, finds unexpected love. Upon being asked to marry, the Synagogue Rabbi declares the bride not Jewish enough for an Orthodox wedding. As despair ensues, the struggle of a lifetime begins.

The National YoungArts Foundation, with the generous support of The Related Group, announces the inauguration of the YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts, the first of several residency programs in the visual, literary, design and performing arts the organization is developing as it expands its support of the next generation of artists in the United States and strengthens its place as a creative-catalyst for Miami's growing cultural landscape. The YoungArts Residency in Visual Arts will be extended to at least three outstanding visual artists a year, offering them the opportunity to become immersed in the Miami community while developing their work. The program will welcome the accomplished painter Suzanne McClelland as the inaugural artist in residence starting in June 2014.

On June 14 at 5:00pm, Jazz at Lincoln Center will partner with The Harlem Children's Zone to present Uptown Family Swing, a free community concert featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and Mr. Aubrey's Show Kids.

Copeland will bring her 18 years of dance experience and her hard-won life lessons to the EMMY winning FOX show SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE as a Guest Judge on multiple episodes.

Despite my eternal love for SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, last week I expressed a bit of audition fatigue. Though I appreciate seeing the beginning of each competitors' journeys, the vast majority of 30-second solos seem like unsatisfying appetizers, when all I want is a fully-formed emotional and artistic meal. This week's episode didn't do much to change my audition opinion, as many of the routines were just technical exhibitions, but for the first time this season, I started to see some potential winners. It also doesn't hurt when Executive Producer and Judge Nigel Lythgoe welcomes a Tony-winner to the judging panel.

Coming to Manhattan's Cabrini Rep this June - Soul of a Blue Butterfly; the true story of a young Swedish woman en route to Jerusalem to discover her roots, finds unexpected love. Upon being asked to marry, the Synagogue Rabbi declares the bride not Jewish enough for an Orthodox wedding. As despair ensues, the struggle of a lifetime begins.

On Saturday, May 18, 2014, 350 Princeton Ballet School students performed in the school's annual spring production 2014,The Sleeping Beauty, at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton. The production featured dancers ranging in age from 5 years to adult, with the lead roles performed by members of American Repertory Ballet Workshop (ARBW), the pre-professional performance wing of Princeton Ballet School.

American Ballet Theatre sent its audience on a thrill ride of joy, sorrow, and surprises in Manon. With Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle in the lead roles, choreography and direction by Sir Kenneth MacMillian, and music from the opera of the same name by Jules Massenet, the audience was treated to a passion-filled evening underlined by grace, merriment, tragedy, and pure artistry.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, beloved as one of the world's most popular dance companies, will return to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts with four different programs for a 15-performance engagement at the David H. Koch Theater June 11 - 22, 2014.

On June 14 at 5:00pm, Jazz at Lincoln Center will partner with The Harlem Children's Zone to present Uptown Family Swing, a free community concert featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and Mr. Aubrey's Show Kids.

Today, June 3rd, Metropolitan Ballet Academy will begin its annual master class series, The Bridge. The series gives intermediate and advanced level students the opportunity to study with some of the region's most celebrated professional teachers and dancers. This year's series features ballet instruction led by three acclaimed dance artists and teachers: Abi Stafford, Olga Kostritzky, and John Selya.

After collaborations in 2012 and 2013 with an all-male cast, Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham's The Men Dancers: From the Horse's Mouth make their return to New York today, May 30 through June 1 in honor of ballet great Frederic Franklin (1914-2013) in what would have been his centenary year. This celebration will take place at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts (3 Spruce Street, between Park Row and Gold Street) and is presented by Pace University.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts welcomes the return of dance superstars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in just four performances from July 25 - 27. The program, titled Solo for Two, includes a world premiere commissioned for them by the Center and two works new to their repertoires and never seen before in the United States. Osipova and Vasiliev have enthralled audiences with their incomparable talent and irresistible personalities, capturing the admiration and imaginations of dance audiences around the world. At the Center, they have appeared in Don Quixote with the Bolshoi Ballet in 2010, in the 2009 Tour de Force dance gala and Reflections in 2011. In 2012, Osipova returned to the Center, starring in the world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky's production of Firebird for American Ballet Theatre. In 2011, Vasiliev danced in the second Kings of the Dance.