Sara Mearns News

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Get over the hump today with the top Broadway stories!

Next up at New York City Center is I Married an Angel, the second Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season. In addition to Sara Mearns as the Angel of the title, the production will feature Phillip Attmore (Peter Mueller), Max Baker (General Lucash), Mark Evans (Count Willy Palaffi), Ann Harada (Duchess of Holstein-Kuloff), Nikki M. James (Countess Peggy Palaffi), Hayley Podschun (Anna Murphy), and Tom Robbins (Harry Mischka Szigetti).

It's become second-nature for many in the dance world to refer to Jerome Robbins as a second rate choreographer these days. Or should I say even 40 years ago?

New York City Center today announced casting for I Married an Angel, the second Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season.

The NYCB's five-part 'Classic NYCB' program, performed this past Wednesday, February 6th at Lincoln Center, featured a broad choreographic landscape. Through the work of four choreographers and spanning four decades, the evening featured not only the 'Classic NYCB,' as promised by the program title, but also a rare brand of 'Iconoclastic NYCB.' While some audiences might be nostalgic for the glory of 50's Balanchine, this evening proved that perhaps the best is yet to come and that even Balanchine did not shy away from experimentation as he reached towards artistic relevancy.

Seven of the world's leading ballet talents, all dancers with the New York City Ballet, will grace the Township Auditorium stage March 31, as the University of South Carolina Department of Theatre and Dance presents the14th Annual Ballet Stars of New York Gala Performance.

Now entering its 28th year, Broadway Theatre Project (BTP) announces Pamela Cooper of The Cooper Company will join the visiting faculty team in 2019. BTP faculty range from professional dancers and choreographers to vocal coaches and directors. The deadline for BTP 2019 applications and recorded auditions is March 1st.

I always enjoy mingling with the crowd during ballet intermissions to hear their views and to see if mine corresponds with theirs.

In the history of classical ballet, it's hard to find a pair more perfect than Balanchine and Tchaikovsky. Balanchine's choreographic style, defined by quirky syncopations and dramatic port de bras, punctuates the longing percussions of Tchaikovsky's scores. The exchange of movement and music is a call and response; a mutual muse that appears when beckoned. This is the best way to describe New York City Ballet's artistry on the evening of January 29, 2018. As the dancers took the stage for three Balanchine classics, you could feel both the tradition of precedent and excitement of modernity in the air.

Sara Mearns compares what it's like to portray both good and evil through the universal language of ballet pantomime in the same scene of The Sleeping Beauty by breaking down her performances as both the villainous Carabosse and the beloved Lilac Fairy.

Jacob's Pillow announces the full season lineup of Festival 2019 including world premieres, new commissions, international artists, anniversary celebrations, Pillow-exclusive engagements, and work developed at the Pillow Lab. Entering its 87th consecutive summer, Jacob's Pillow is home to the longest-running dance festival in the United States, a National Historic Landmark, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and has steadily expanded its reach in the field and its local community as a year-round center for dance research and development. Festival 2019 opens June 19, attracting audiences both on and off its site in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, through August 25.

On April 16, 2019-the late, legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham's 100th birthday-the largest Cunningham Event ever staged will take place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not for profit foundation affiliated with Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, presented this year's Zelda Fichandler Award, Joe A. Callaway Awards, and Breakout Award on Sunday, November 11, 2018 in Manhattan. BroadwayWorld attended the evening and you can check out the photos from the cocktail party below!

According to The New York Times, choreographer Joshua Bergasse wed dancer Sara Mearns yesterday in Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

October 31, Halloween. I was walking to City Center for the opening of 'Balanchine: The City Center Years.' But then I began thinking of Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies.' You must all know the musical. Everyone returns for a reunion, only to be met with ghosts and remembrances of their past lives. After all, City Center is where New York City Ballet began in 1948. I wondered who I would encounter? I saw Allegra Kent. I think I saw two other members of the company who danced on New York City Ballet's opening night 70 years ago? But perhaps I'd encounter some of the other principal dancers of that time: Maria Tallchief on the stairs? Or Tanaquil Le Clercq at the bar? Or Frank Hobi? Francisco Moncion? Nicholas Magallenes? Yvonne Mounsey? Diana Adams?

Celebrating 30 years of artistic excellence, Festival Ballet Theatre (FBT), Orange County's resident professional ballet company, will present the family favorite production of The Nutcracker, December 8 - 24, 2018 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in Irvine, California.

The night remained forever young at this year's Bessies, what with live performances, videos, tearful and grinning thank you's, hugs and cheers for the new slew of winners, and a costume sashay thrown into wild mix of celebration that took place tonight, October 8, at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.  As a prelude to the goings-on inside, impromptu dance performances, including Simone Forti's "Huddle," took place outside.  Ayodele Casel and Shernita Anderson hosted the evening.

New York City Center announced today full programming for the 15th Fall for Dance Festival (Oct 1 - 13). Opening the landmark 75th Anniversary Season, the Festival showcases an international array of dance artists and companies in five unique programs.  In keeping with City Center's founding mission to make the arts accessible to everyone, all tickets are $15.