From the Director
January 2012
I hope the New Year finds you well. As we embark on 2012, the Trust has launched a private YouTube channel for ballet company and school artistic directors to be able to view Balanchine ballets they may want to consider for their companies and schools.
It has become challenging for a number of reasons to send out tapes of ballets and this seems to be a good solution. It allows directors to have access to the ballets for a limited period of time, to be able to have colleagues view the ballets and to determine which ballets might be suitable for their companies and schools before the Trust is contacted.
There are a number Balanchine ballets that are not performed often and we would be most interested in having them considered for teaching and performance. If you would like to discuss possibilities, please be in touch with the Trust and we would be glad to assist you. If you know which ballets you would be interested in viewing, let us know by email and we will send instructions for access.
We hope the private YouTube channel will provide you with a new resource to expand your familiarity of Balanchine ballets, as there are nearly eighty that are available to be staged.
Have a good month.
December 2011
It’s Nutcracker season again and all over the world, ballet companies are getting ready for this holiday tradition. Its music we seem to welcome again as an old friend, but we are also glad to see it go.
This year, the Royal Danish Ballet, under the artistic direction of Nikolaj Hübbe, will be premiering George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™ on December 3rd. Nikolaj danced for many years as a principal at New York City Ballet, and grew to love the Balanchine version of this classic story. Now that he is heading up the Royal Danish Ballet, he is bringing this exquisitely danced story to his fellow Danes. We’ll be there to cheer.
On December 13th, New York City Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™ will be presented live from Lincoln Center to movie theaters around the world in HD. It will be broadcast at 6pm EST time, so check online for a theater in your area and the time of broadcast. It is being produced by Live from Lincoln Center and distributed to theaters by Fathom Entertainment. The next night, December 14th, it will be broadcast live from the stage to a television audience on Live from Lincoln Center on PBS. The time of broadcast from the theater will be 8pm, but check your local listings in case there is a time delay in your area.
Don’t miss the live performances of the Nutcracker in your cities and towns, but if you haven’t seen Balanchine’s Nutcracker, add that to your holiday tradition this year.
Have a good holiday season!
November 2011
As The George Balanchine Trust launches its updated website, which we hope you will find visually more compelling and easier to navigate, we are reminded of a time when there were no websites and communication happened by telephone, then fax and now by email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Being and staying in touch is easier than ever. Keeping track of it all is more difficult.
We have come amazingly far with technology and yet the staging of a Balanchine ballet requires the hands-on presence and attention of a repetiteur, just as Mr. Balanchine taught his ballets to several generations of dancers. There are no computer programs or definitive films or magic elixirs available to instruct and inspire the dancers. That is now done by the repetiteurs, all dancers themselves who were trained, rehearsed, and coached by Mr. Balanchine. They continue to provide the artistic interpretation and impart the wisdom they learned from him to the ballets they stage. Without them his ballets would have no life. We are forever grateful and indebted to them for their passion and commitment to the legacy of Balanchine.
Just like technology, the years bring changes, and we are entering an era where the teaching of the ballets is being passed to yet another generation, those who learned the ballets from the dancers who worked with Mr. Balanchine. As we begin to include this generation in the teaching of his ballets, they in turn will have to call upon their experiences of working with the Balanchine repetiteurs to continue the tradition of handing down the teaching of Balanchine ballets to the next generation.
His ballets live today because they have been rehearsed and cared for these nearly three decades since his death in 1983 by the dancers who served his choreographic vision, then and now.