Several weeks ago in a post on the current struggles at New York City Ballet I made reference to a significant incident in the history of the company that I argued deserves renewed scrutiny. This incident is the sudden rupture in the creative and personal relationship between George Balanchine and Suzanne Farrell in 1969. In… Read more

Amid all of the discussion of the troubling news coming out of New York City Ballet in recent weeks, there is a curious gap in coverage. In an effort to explain how and why NYCB got itself into this situation, and in arguments about what needs to be done to get the company out of… Read more

In recent weeks the New York dance world – and the New York City Ballet in particular – has been reeling from shocking and painful news. Three male dancers left NYCB (one resigned and two were dismissed) over conduct in violation of the company’s policies. Entirely unrelated but soon after, former NYCB dancer and beloved… Read more

“But first, a school…”  (George Balanchine, allegedly) “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8: 32) Many months after the abrupt resignation of Peter Martins, the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet have finally made public the official job description for the person who is to… Read more

George Balanchine is famous for having said a lot of memorable things. “When he stopped his class to talk or when he gave an interview,” as critic Arlene Croce has explained, “he always had something to say that people remembered, and he left the impression that these rough-hewn nuggets of his were as spontaneous as… Read more

When you’ve been working on a book like Balanchine and Kirstein’s American Enterprise, the real story of what happened during George Balanchine‘s first decade in the United States, you accumulate a lot of information. To give you an idea of what I mean, below is a screenshot of my Finder window. This is the “periodicals”… Read more