Mel Tomlinson
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Mel Tomlinson
Mel Alexander Tomlinson (January 3, 1954 – February 5, 2019) was an American dancer and choreographer. At the time of his debut with the New York City Ballet in 1981, he was the only African-American dancer in the company. Ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille referred to Tomlinson as "the most exciting black dancer in America." Early life Tomlinson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and grew up in the Chavis Heights public housing neighborhood in Southeast Raleigh. He began dancing while a student at Fred J. Carnage Junior High School, taking lessons from Betty Kovach. In the 1960s he attended the segregated John W. Ligon Senior High School, where he studied dance and gymnastics. He went on to earn a B.F.A. in dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Career Tomlinson began his professional dance career as a principal dancer with Agnes de Mille Heritage Dance Theater, which was founded at the North Carolina School of the Arts. In 1974 Tomlinson moved to New York ...
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Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, List of United States cities by population, the 41st-most populous city in the U.S., and the largest city of the Research Triangle metro area. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak, oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city. The city covers a land area of . The United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau counted the city's population as 474,069 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. The city of Raleigh is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who established the lost Roanoke Co ...
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Public Housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts. Public housing developments are classified as housing projects that are owned by a city's Housing authority or Federally subsidized public housing operated through HUD. Social housing is any rental housing that may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Social housing is generally rationed by a government through some form of means-testing or through administrative measures of housing need. One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality. Private housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by an i ...
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Greensboro Ballet
Greensboro Ballet is a professional ballet company in North Carolina. It is the only ballet company in the Piedmont Triad. It is one of the only non-profit ballet companies in North Carolina. Greensboro Ballet has presented works by George Balanchine. The company also has performed a number of works made especially for the Greensboro Ballet by Rick McCullough, Jill Eathorne Bahr, Leslie Jane Pessemier, and alumni Emery LeCrone. Maryhelen Mayfield, who served as artistic and executive director of Greensboro Ballet from 1980 to 2019, choreographed over twenty-five works for the company. History In 1964 the Greensboro Civic Ballet was formed. The original focus was on providing local dancers with annual performances. In the 1970s the Greensboro Civic Ballet was reorganized under the name Civic Ballet Theatre and a ballet school was created. Organizers of the company approached the United Arts Council of Greensboro for membership as well as funding and space within the Greensboro ...
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University Of North Carolina At Charlotte
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs through nine colleges: the College of Arts + Architecture, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the Belk College of Business, the College of Computing and Informatics, the Cato College of Education, the William States Lee College of Engineering, the College of Health and Human Services, the Honors College, and the University College. UNC Charlotte is the largest institution of higher education in the Charlotte region. The university has experienced rapid enrollment growth of 33% over the past 10 years, making it the fastest-growing institution in the UNC System and contributing to more than 50% of the system's growth since 2009. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". In 2020, it surpassed the University of North C ...
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Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ...
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Boston Conservatory Of Music
Boston Conservatory at Berklee (formerly The Boston Conservatory) is a private performing arts conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, music, and theater. Boston Conservatory was founded on February 11, 1867, as a music conservatory and later expanded to include leading programs in dance, opera, and theater. It currently offers Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, Master of Fine Arts, and Master of Music degrees, as well as Graduate Performance Diplomas, Artist Diplomas, and Professional Studies Certificates. In 2016, Boston Conservatory merged with Berklee College of Music to form "Berklee," an umbrella institution that includes Berklee College of Music, Berklee Online, Berklee Valencia, and Berklee NYC. With this, the conservatory's name was changed to "Boston Conservatory at Berklee." Boston Conservatory remains a disparate school within Berklee, continuing to offer its signature conservatory programs. Berklee is ...
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Heather Watts
Heather Watts (born Linda Heather Watts; September 27, 1953) is a ballet dancer, most known for her time with the New York City Ballet. Biography Born in Long Beach, California, her dream as a little girl was to be an actress. An acting coach advised her taking ballet classes, seeing as she was incredibly dramatic (and clumsy). So she started dancing at the age of 10, to "develop poise." She came to New York at the age of 13 on a Ford Foundation summer scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet. She moved permanently to New York at age 15, again on a Ford Foundation scholarship to the School of American Ballet. Watts joined the New York City Ballet in 1970 and was promoted to principal dancer by company co-founder George Balanchine in 1979. Balanchine took Watts into his company "because he would not let such a talent disappear." During Watts's tenure with the company, she had numerous principal roles created for he ...
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Agon (ballet)
''Agon'' is a 22-minute ballet for twelve dancers with music by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed by George Balanchine. Stravinsky began composition in December 1953 but was interrupted the next year; he resumed work in 1956 and concluded on April 27, 1957. The music was premiered in Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall on June 17, 1957, conducted by Robert Craft. Stravinsky himself conducted the sessions for the work's first recording the following day on June 18, 1957. ''Agon'' was first performed on stage by the New York City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama on December 1, 1957. The composition's long gestation period covers an interesting juncture in Stravinsky's composing career, in which he moved from a diatonic musical idiom to one based on twelve-tone technique; the music of the ballet thus demonstrates a unique symbiosis of musical idioms. The ballet has no story, but consists of a series of dance movements in which various groups of dancers interact in pairs ...
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George 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 ...
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Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)
''Scheherazade'', also commonly ''Sheherazade'' ( rus, Шехеразада, Shekherazada, ʂɨxʲɪrɐˈzadə), Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888 and based on ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (also known as ''The Arabian Nights)''. This orchestral work combines two features typical of Russian music in general and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. The name "Scheherazade" refers to the main character Scheherazade of the ''One Thousand and One Nights''. It is one of Rimsky-Korsakov's most popular works. Background During the winter of 1887, as he worked to complete Alexander Borodin's unfinished opera ''Prince Igor,'' Rimsky-Korsakov decided to compose an orchestral piece based on pictures from ''One Thousand and One Nights'' as well as separate and unconnected episodes.Rimsky-Korsakov ...
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Swan Lake
''Swan Lake'' ( rus, Лебеди́ное о́зеро, r=Lebedínoye ózero, p=lʲɪbʲɪˈdʲinəjə ˈozʲɪrə, link=no ), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time. The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger (Václav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by ...
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Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet is one of the premier dance companies and training institutions in the world today. Located in Chicago, Illinois, the Joffrey regularly performs classical and contemporary ballets during its annual performance season at Lyric Opera House, including its annual presentation of ''The Nutcracker''. Founded in 1956 by dance pioneers Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, the company has earned a reputation for boundary-breaking performances, including its 1987 presentation of Vaslav Nijinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'', which reconstructed the original choreography from the 1913 premiere that was thought to be lost. Many choreographers have worked with the Joffrey, including Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and George Balanchine. History In 1956, a time during which most touring companies performed only reduced versions of ballet classics, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino formed a six-dancer ensemble that toured the country in a station wagon pulling a U-Haul trailer, perform ...
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