Susan Coxe Hendl (September 18, 1947 – October 12, 2020) was an American ballet dancer and ''

répétiteur A (from the French verb meaning 'to repeat, to go over, to learn, to rehearse') is an accompanist, tutor or coach of ballet dancers or opera singers. A feminine form, , also appears but is comparatively rare. Opera In opera, a is the person ...

''. She danced with the

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' ...

between 1963 and 1983, then staged and coached works by

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 ...

and

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

for both NYCB and other companies.

Early life

Susan Hendl was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Walter Hendl Walter Hendl (January 12, 1917April 10, 2007) was an American conductor, composer and pianist. Biography Hendl was born in West New York, New Jersey, and later went on to study with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia ...

, a composer and conductor, and Mary Newbold Hendl (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Williams), a visual artist. After Walter Hendl became the

Dallas Symphony Orchestra The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Dallas, Texas. Its principal performing venue is the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. History The orchestra traces its origins to a ...

's music director, the family relocated to Dallas. Susan Hendl took a ballet class with

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 fo ...

, a Russian-born ballerina who taught at the

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 ...

, when Hendl was in preschool. Following her parents' separation, she and her mother moved to

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in th ...

, and she continued her training with

Pennsylvania Ballet The Philadelphia Ballet, formerly known as Pennsylvania Ballet until rebranding in 2021, is Philadelphia's largest ballet company. The company's annual local season features six programs of classic favorites, as well as new works, including the Ph ...

founder Barbara Weisberger. In 1959, Hendl entered the School of American Ballet in New York City and studied at the

Professional Children's School Professional Children's School (PCS) is a not-for-profit, college preparatory school geared toward working and aspiring child actors and dancers in grades six through twelve. The school was founded in New York City in 1914 to provide an academic ed ...

Career

Hendl joined the

in 1963 at age 16. In 1970, she performed her first lead role, the Strip Tease girl in

's ''

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue ''Slaughter on Tenth Avenue'' is a ballet with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by George Balanchine. It occurs near the end of Rodgers and Hart's 1936 Broadway musical comedy '' On Your Toes''. ''Slaughter'' is the story of a hoofer who ...

'', for which the ''New York Times'' commented that she "danced with an unabashed enthusiasm." She became a soloist in 1972, and created roles in Balanchine's '' Who Cares?'', ''

Coppélia ''Coppélia'' (sometimes subtitled: ''La Fille aux Yeux d'Émail'' (The Girl with the Enamel Eyes)) is a comic ballet from 1870 originally choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to the music of Léo Delibes, with libretto by Charles-Louis-Éti ...

'', ''

Le tombeau de Couperin ''Le Tombeau de Couperin'' (''The Couperin's Grave'') is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque suite. Each movement is dedicated to the mem ...

'' and ''

Chaconne A chaconne (; ; es, chacona, links=no; it, ciaccona, links=no, ; earlier English: ''chacony'') is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short rep ...

'', and

's '' The Goldberg Variations'' and ''

Requiem Canticles ''Requiem Canticles'' is a 15-minute composition by Igor Stravinsky, for contralto and bass soli, chorus, and orchestra. Stravinsky completed the work in 1966, and it received its first performance that same year. The work is a partial setting of ...

''. In 1978, she danced another role in ''The Goldberg Variations'', and

Jennifer Dunning Jennifer Dunning (born February 4, 1942) is a writer and critic for ''The New York Times'' on the subjects of dance and ballet. She is the author of the 1985 ''But First a School: The First Fifty Years of the School of American Ballet'', the 1996 ...

of the ''New York Times'' commented, "Hendl filled the stage with luxuriously stretched

arabesques The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...

and the delicate detail of her head and arm work. Her turns had the proper negligible spin to them and a last soaring lift added fleetingly elegiac note to the close of the first section." She was also known for her performance in Robbins' ''

Dances at a Gathering ''Dances at a Gathering'' is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to music by Frédéric Chopin, with costumes designed by Joe Eula. The ballet premiered on May 22, 1969, at the New York State Theater, performed by the New York City Ballet. ...

''. Hendl worked with choreographer

Peter Martins Peter Martins (born 27 October 1946) is a Danish ballet dancer and choreographer. Martins was a principal dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet and with the New York City Ballet, where he joined George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and John Taras as ...

in the 1970s, and in 1979, she assisted Balanchine and Robbins in ''

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'' (, translated as ''The Bourgeois Gentleman'', ''The Middle-Class Aristocrat'', or ''The Would-Be Noble'') is a five-act ''comédie-ballet'' – a Play (theatre), play intermingled with music, dance and singing – wri ...

'' for the

New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, du ...

, which starred

Rudolf Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...

. She retired from performing in 1983, the same year Balanchine died. She then assumed the role of assistant ballet master at the New York City Ballet, and staged Balanchine and Robbins' works for other companies, including ''Dances at a Gathering'' for

The Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...

and

San Francisco Ballet San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Franc ...

. She was a trustee for the George Balanchine Trust, and stepped down from the New York City Ballet in 2018 due to her health.

Death

Hendl died from

renal failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

on October 12, 2020 at the

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...

. She was 73.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hendl, Susan 1947 births 2020 deaths Entertainers from New York City American ballerinas New York City Ballet soloists Balanchine Trust repetiteurs Ballet mistresses New York City Ballet balletmasters 20th-century American ballet dancers Dancers from New York (state)