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Balanchine
George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was an ethnic Georgian American ballet choreographer who was one of the most influential 20th-century choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its artistic director for more than 35 years.Joseph Horowitz (2008)''Artists in Exile: How Refugees from 20th-century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts.''HarperCollins. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music. Born in St. Petersburg, Balanchine took the standards and technique from his time at the Imperial Ballet School and fused it with other schools of movement that he had adopted during his tenure on Broadway and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Tallchief
Elizabeth Marie Tallchief (Osage family name: , Osage script: ; January 24, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American ballerina. She was considered America's first major prima ballerina. She was the first Native American (Osage Nation) to hold the rank, and is said to have revolutionized ballet. Almost from birth, Tallchief was involved in dance, starting formal lessons at age three. When she was eight, her family relocated from her birth home of Fairfax, Oklahoma, to Los Angeles, California. The purpose of the move was to advance the careers of Maria and her younger sister, Marjorie. Both sisters became dance professionals and leading figures. At age 17, she moved to New York City in search of a spot with a major ballet company, and, at the urging of others, took the name Maria Tallchief. She spent the next five years with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she met choreographer George Balanchine. When Balanchine co-founded what would become the New York City Ballet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946. History In a 1946 letter, Kirstein stated, "The only justification I have is to enable Balanchine to do exactly what he wants to do in the way he wants to do it."Alastair Macaulay, "A Paragon of the Arts, as Both Man and Titan" (review of Martin Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamara Geva
Tamara Geva (russian: Тамара Жева, born Tamara Levkievna Zheverzheeva, russian: Тамара Левкиевна Жевержеева; 17 March 1906 – 9 December 1997) was a Soviet and later an American actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer. She was the daughter of art patron and collector and she was the first wife of the well-known ballet dancer/choreographer George Balanchine. Throughout her life she danced with Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, performed with husband George Balanchine, and performed in and choreographed many notable Broadway shows. Geva also wrote an autobiographical book entitled ''Split Seconds''. Family and early life Tamara Geva was born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire on March 17, 1906. Geva's mother was well-known actress Tamara Urtahl and her father was passionate collector and art enthusiast (or Zheverzheyev). Her father was known as a freethinker. He sponsored Russian avant-garde artists and their projects through his enthusiasm for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways. A ''ballet'' as a unified work comprises the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery. Etymology Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Edward Kirstein (May 4, 1907 – January 5, 1996) was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and cultural figure in New York City, noted especially as co-founder of the New York City Ballet. He developed and sustained the company with his organizing ability and fundraising for more than four decades, serving as the company's general director from 1946 to 1989. According to the ''New York Times,'' he was "an expert in many fields", organizing art exhibits and lecture tours in the same years. Early life Kirstein was born in Rochester, New York, to Jewish parents, the son of Rose Stein and Louis E. Kirstein (1867–1942). His brother was George Kirstein, his sister was Mina Kirstein and his paternal grandparents were Jeanette (née Leiter) and Edward Kirstein, a successful Rochester clothing manufacturer who ran E. Kirstein and Sons, Company. He grew up in a wealthy, Jewish, Bostonian family and attended the private Berkshire School, along with Geo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandra Danilova
Aleksandra Dionisyevna Danilova (''Russian'': Александра Дионисьевна Данилова; November 20, 1903 – July 13, 1997) was a Russian-born prima ballerina, who became an American citizen. In 1989, she was recognized for lifetime achievements in ballet as a Kennedy Center Honoree. Early life Born in Peterhof, Russian Empire on November 20, 1903, she trained at the Russian Imperial Ballet School in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). She was one of the few Russian-trained ballerinas to tour outside Russia. Her first professional post was as a member of St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet. Career In 1924, she and George Balanchine left Russia. They were soon picked up by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; Danilova as a dancer, Balanchine as a choreographer. Danilova toured for years with the Ballets Russes under Sergei Diaghilev, then with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo after Diaghilev's death. With the latter company, Danilova and Frederic Franklin creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanaquil LeClercq
Tanaquil Le Clercq ( ; October 2, 1929 – December 31, 2000) was an American ballet dancer, born in Paris, France, who became a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet at the age of nineteen. Her dancing career ended abruptly when she was stricken with polio in Copenhagen during the company's European tour in 1956. Eventually regaining most of the use of her arms and torso, she remained paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life. Biography Le Clercq was the daughter of Jacques Le Clercq, a European American intellectual, professor of French at Queens College in the 1950s-early 1970s, and his American wife, Edith (née Whittemore); she studied ballet with Mikhail Mordkin before auditioning for the School of American Ballet in 1941, where she won a scholarship. When Le Clercq was fifteen years old, famed choreographer George Balanchine asked her to perform with him in a dance he choreographed for a polio charity benefit. In an eerie portent of things to c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choreography
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing. It most commonly refers to dance choreography. In dance, ''choreography'' may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. Dance choreography is sometimes called ''dance composition''. Aspects of dance choreography include the compositional use of organic unity, rhythmic or non-rhythmic articulation, theme and variation, and repetition. The choreographic process may employ improvisation for the purpose of developing innovative movement ideas. In general, choreography is used to design dances that are intended to be performed as concert dance. The art of choreography involves the specification of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
School Of American Ballet
The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the most renowned ballet school in the United States. School of American Ballet is the associate school of the New York City Ballet, a ballet company based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The school trains students from the age of six, with professional vocational ballet training for students aged 11–18. Graduates of the school achieve employment with leading ballet companies worldwide, and in the United States with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Houston Ballet. History The school was founded by the renowned Russo-Georgian-born choreographer George Balanchine, and philanthropists Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Warburg in 1934. Balanchine's self- prescribed edict, "But first, a school", is indicative of his adherence to the ideals of the training that was fostered by the Imperial Ballet School where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: '' The Firebird'' (1910), '' Petrushka'' (1911), and '' The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as '' Renard'', '' L'Histoire du soldat,'' and '' Les noces'', was followed in the 1920s by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vera Zorina
Vera Zorina (January 2, 1917 – April 9, 2003), born Eva Brigitta Hartwig, was a Norwegian ballerina, theatre and film actress, and choreographer. Today, she is chiefly remembered for her films choreographed by her then-husband George Balanchine. They include the ''Slaughter on Tenth Avenue'' sequence from ''On Your Toes'', ''The Goldwyn Follies'', ''I Was an Adventuress'' with Erich Von Stroheim and Peter Lorre, ''Louisiana Purchase'' with Bob Hope, and dancing to "That Old Black Magic" in Paramount Pictures' ''Star Spangled Rhythm''. Background Zorina was born in Berlin, Germany. Her father Fritz Hartwig was a German lapsed Roman Catholic, and her mother Abigail Johanne Wimpelmann (known as Billie Hartwig) was Norwegian and Lutheran. Both were professional singers. Zorina was brought up in Kristiansund, a small coastal town between Trondheim and Bergen, where she debuted as a dancer at the local theatre, Festiviteten. She received her education at the Lyceum for Girls in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meliton Balanchivadze
Meliton Balanchivadze ( ka, მელიტონ ბალანჩივაძე; 24 December 1862 – 21 December 1937) was a Georgian opera singer, composer and a celebrated member of Georgia's cultural scene, both under the Russian Empire and during the country's independence. Two of his sons, George and Andria, had illustrious careers, the former as a pioneering choreographer in the United States, and the latter as Soviet Georgia's leading classical composer. Career Born in the village of Banoja and trained at the seminaries of Kutaisi and Tbilisi, Balanchivadze began an operatic career at the Tbilisi Opera House in 1880. In 1882, he founded a Georgian folk ensemble and organized the first ever folk concert in Tbilisi in the next year. From 1883 to 1886, he travelled to various parts of Georgia, collecting folk songs and training folk choirs. From 1889 to 1895, he studied at St. Petersburg Conservatory where one of his teachers was the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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