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65-789: In his first season Legris created all together eight premieres, including the triple bill evening "Juwelen der Neuen Welt" (Jewels of the New World) featuring ballets by George Balanchine ( Theme and Variations , Rubies ), Twyla Tharp ( Variations on a Theme by Haydn ) and William Forsythe ( The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude ), Schritte und Spuren (Steps and Traces) with choreographies by Jorma Elo ( Glow – Stop ), Jiří Bubeníček ( Le Souffle de l´Esprit ), Paul Lightfoot and Sol León ( Skew-Whiff ) and Jiří Kylián ( Bella Figura ), Don Quixote by Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa , and Hommage an Jerome Robbins (Homage to Jerome Robbins ) including his ballets Glass Pieces , In

130-589: A 'shack scene' which takes place in Chicago's south side. Marie will then be introduced to the enchanted world of sweets and foreign places. On 6 June 2019, Wheeldon's Cinderella in-the-round with English National Ballet was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall with over 90 dancers, and projections which created the fairytale setting. On February 1, 2022, MJ the Musical opened on Broadway. Wheeldon

195-440: A German, who later left Russia and abandoned his family, causing Maria to take her mother's name. She was fond of ballet and viewed it as a form of social advancement from the lower reaches of Saint Petersburg society. She was eleven years younger than Meliton and rumored to have been his former housekeeper, although "she had at least some culture in her background" as she could play piano well. The Balanchine mother also worked at

260-924: A US base at New York City Center and in the UK at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London. In its first season, the company performed in Vail , London and New York. Wheeldon completed his tenure as Resident Choreographer of New York City Ballet in February 2008. In 2009, the City Parks Foundation commissioned Wheeldon and contemporary singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright to create a new work. The piece, entitled "Tears of St. Lawrence," premiered at Central Park SummerStage on 14 and 15 August. The fifteen-minute ballet, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and Edwaard Liang, featured twelve dancers accompanied by live music and song by Wainwright, who sang while intermingling with

325-544: A ballet choreographer, had his darker side. In his Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts (2007), James writes that: the great choreographer ruled the New York City Ballet as a fiefdom, with the ' droit du seigneur ' among his privileges. The older he became, the more consuming his love affairs with his young ballerinas ... When [ballerina Suzanne Farrell ] fell in love with and married

390-444: A bank. Although she loved ballet, she wished for her son to join the military. This was a difficult topic to enforce in the family because not only was the mother artistic, George's father was also very talented at playing the piano. Many believe that because his father was very invested in the arts, Balanchine's career of being a businessman failed. Balanchine had three other siblings. One of them being Andrei Balanchivadze , who became

455-750: A couple of months during 1933, performing only in Paris and London, when the Great Depression made arts more difficult to fund. Balanchine created several new works, including collaborations with composers Kurt Weill , Darius Milhaud , Henri Sauguet and designer Pavel Tchelitchew . Balanchine insisted that his first project in the United States would be to establish a ballet school because he wanted to develop dancers who had strong technique along with his particular style. Compared to his classical training, he thought they could not dance well. With

520-426: A legal separation." He married and divorced three more times, all to women who were his dancers: Vera Zorina (1938–1946), Maria Tallchief (1946–1952), and Tanaquil LeClercq (1952–1969). He had no children by any of his marriages and no known offspring from any of his extramarital liaisons. Biographer and intellectual historian Clive James has argued that Balanchine, despite his creative genius and brilliance as

585-776: A permission to leave Russia and tour around Europe. Balanchine with his wife, Tamara Geva , and several other dancers ( Alexandra Danilova , Nicholas Efimov ) went to Germany, but all performances in Berlin were met coldly. The Young Ballet had to perform in small cities of the Rhine Province such as Wiesbaden , Bad Ems , and Moselle . Geva wrote later, that in that time they had to dance 'in small dark places, in summer theaters and private ballrooms, in beer gardens and before mental patients'. They could barely afford paying for hotels and often had only tea for meal. In London, they had two weeks of very unsuccessful performances, when

650-651: A physical therapist, Wheeldon began training to be a ballet dancer at the age of 8. He attended the Royal Ballet School between the ages of 11 and 18. In 1991, Wheeldon joined the Royal Ballet, London ; and in that same year, he won the gold medal at the Prix de Lausanne competition. In 1993, at the age of 19, Wheeldon moved to New York City to join the New York City Ballet . Wheeldon

715-759: A quadruple bill evening with William Forsythe's Artifact Suite , Hans van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes and Solo , and Jiří Kylián's Psalmensymphonie , and the Nureyev Gala 2019 . At the Vienna Volksoper two premieres followed: Pierre Lacotte's Coppélia , and Vesna Orlic's Peter Pan . In his tenth and last season at the Wiener Staatsballett Manuel Legris presents three premieres at the Vienna State Opera: George Balanchine's Jewels ,

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780-471: A score in 1940 for The Four Temperaments . First performed on November 20, 1946, this modernist work was one of his early abstract and spare ballets, angular and very different in movement. After several successful performances, the most notable featuring the ballet Orpheus created in collaboration with Stravinsky and sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi , the City of New York offered the company residency at

845-472: A triple bill evening with Hans van Manen 's Adagio Hammerklavier , Alexander Ekman 's Cacti , and Jiří Kylián's Bella Figura and the Nureyev Gala 2015 . Three premieres followed also at the Vienna Volksoper: the double bill evening Mozart à 2 / Don Juan by Thierry Malandain, Giselle Rouge (Red Giselle) by Boris Eifman , and "Junge Talente des Wiener Staatsballetts II" (Young Talents of

910-510: A well-known Georgian composer like his father. As a child, Balanchine was not particularly interested in ballet, but his mother insisted that he audition with his sister Tamara, who shared her mother's interest in the art. Balanchine's brother Andria Balanchivadze instead followed his father's love for music and became a composer in Soviet Georgia . Tamara's career, however, would be cut short by her death in unknown circumstances as she

975-539: A young dancer, Balanchine dismissed her from the company, thereby injuring her career for a crucial decade. With his School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet, and 400 choreographed works, Balanchine transformed American dance and created neoclassical ballet , developing a unique style with his dancers highlighted by brilliant speed and attack. A monument at the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre in Georgia

1040-701: Is difficult to execute and all dancers must do their jobs to hold the integrity of the piece. Balanchine's use of musicality can also be seen in this work. His other famous works with New York City Ballet are popular today and are performed in the Lincoln Center by New York City Ballet: Mozartiana , Apollo , Orpheus , and A Midsummer Night's Dream . In his last years, Balanchine had angina pectoris and underwent heart bypass surgery . After years of illness, Balanchine died on April 30, 1983, aged 79, in Manhattan from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease , which

1105-475: Is interesting to many generations of choreographers. He had a Russian Orthodox funeral, and was interred at the Oakland Cemetery at Sag Harbor, Suffolk County, New York at the same cemetery where Alexandra Danilova was later interred. Starting out his professional career with opera ballets, Balanchine did not take classicism as the a priori theory, but instead searched for his own style through

1170-443: Is now a home for dancers of New York City Ballet as well as companies from all over the world. Between his ballet activities in the 1930s and 1940s, Balanchine choreographed Broadway musicals written by such notables as Richard Rodgers , Lorenz Hart and Vernon Duke . Among them, Balanchine choreographed Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes in 1936, where his program billing specified "Choreography by George Balanchine" as opposed to

1235-788: The New York City Center . In 1954, Balanchine created his version of The Nutcracker , in which he played the mime role of Drosselmeyer. The company has since performed the ballet every year in New York City during the Christmas season . His other famous ballets created for New York companies include Firebird , Allegro Brilliante , Agon , The Seven Deadly Sins , and Episodes . In 1967, Balanchine's ballet Jewels displayed specific characteristics of Balanchine's choreography. The corps de ballet dancers execute rapid footwork and precise movements. The choreography

1300-576: The Nureyev Gala 2014 . At the Vienna Volksoper there were two premieres: the double bill evening "Märchenwelt Ballett" with Vesna Orlic's Tausendundeine Nacht (One Thousand and One Nights), and Andrey Kaydanovskiy's Das hässliche Entlein (The Ugly Duckling), and Ein Reigen by Ashley Page . In the fifth season three premieres followed at the Vienna State Opera: John Neumeier 's Verklungene Feste and Josephs Legende ,

1365-682: The "Forty Under 40" list. Christopher Wheeldon was appointed Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet in 2012. In 2011, Wheeldon premiered a full-length ballet Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at the Royal Ballet , Covent Garden . This was the first full-length ballet created at the Royal Ballet for over 20 years, and was jointly commissioned with the National Ballet of Canada . The ballet had its world premiere on 28 February 2011 (with Royal Ballet principal Lauren Cuthbertson in

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1430-868: The 1930s. It is widely accepted that Balanchine had established the American ballet style, and the Neoclassical style that Balanchine consolidated represents the American spirit. While the European classical ballet often creates a fantasy world filled with “magic sylphs and swans”, Balanchine diverted from the traditional story-telling method and let dancers just be dancers who showcase their artistic ability through movements. Throughout Balanchine’s career, he created many neoclassical leotard ballets in which dancers perform in simple leotards rather than excessive costumes. Balanchine’s removal of characters, storytelling, and costumes bring ballet back into reality to redefine

1495-840: The American-style ballet, Balanchine also contributed to the ballet education in the United States. Upon his arrival in the United States in 1933, Balanchine sensed the urgency of establishing an institutionalized ballet school to deliver systematic training in ballet. Established in 1934, the School of American Ballet was taught based on the Russian ballet style Balanchine once received himself with his own alternations. Balanchine’s pedagogues focused on clarity and breadth of motion, sharpness of nuance, and intensity of image. Balanchine’s lessons delivered were not set in stone, but instead an evolving glossary: he continuous tested his concepts on

1560-684: The Ballets Russes went bankrupt. To earn money, Balanchine began to stage dances for Charles B. Cochran 's revues and Sir Oswald Stoll 's variety shows in London. He was retained by the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen as a guest ballet master. Among his new works for the company were Danses Concertantes , a pure dance piece to music by Stravinsky, and Night Shadow , revived under the title La Sonnambula . In 1931, with

1625-578: The Mariinsky Ballet). His studies at the conservatory included advanced piano, music theory, counterpoint, harmony, and composition. Balanchine graduated from the conservatory in 1923, and danced as a member of the corps until 1924. While still in his teens, Balanchine choreographed his first work, a pas de deux named La Nuit (1920, music by Anton Rubinstein ), a piece which the school of directors did not approve of or like. George Balanchine went about his choreography in an experimental way during

1690-753: The Mariinsky Theater until it closed down in 1917 due to a government decree. Attending ballet here could have been viewed as a convenience to the Balanchivadze family because this is where his father composed music. This theater was transferred to the People's Enlightenment Commissariat and became property of the state. The Theater reopened in 1918, then two years later the theater was called the State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet. He mounted some new and experimental ballets for

1755-679: The Mikhailovsky Theatre in Petrograd. Among them were Le Boeuf sur le toit (1920) by Jean Cocteau and Darius Milhaud, and a scene for Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw. After graduating in 1921, Balanchine enrolled in the Petrograd Conservatory while working in the corps de ballet at the State Academic Theater for Opera and Ballet (formerly the State Theater of Opera and Ballet and known as

1820-691: The Night and The Concert and the Nureyev Gala 2011 at the Vienna State Opera. At the Vienna Volksoper he brought Patrick de Bana's Marie Antoinette , Maurice Béjart 's Le Concours and the ballet evening "Junge Talente des Wiener Staatsballetts" (Young Talents of the Vienna State Ballet). In the second season three premieres followed in the Vienna State Opera: Pierre Lacotte's La Sylphide ,

1885-776: The Vienna State Ballet II). The sixth season brought another three premieres at the Vienna State Opera: a triple bill evening with Stephan Thoss' Blaubarts Geheimnis (excerpt) ("Bluebeard's Secret"), Christopher Wheeldon 's Fool’s Paradise , and Jerome Robbins' The Four Seasons , as well as Manuel Legris' own choreography of Le Corsaire and the Nureyev Gala 2016 . At the Vienna Volksoper Michael Corder 's Die Schneekönigin ("The Snow Queen") had its premiere. In his seventh season Manuel Legris showed three premieres at

1950-577: The Vienna State Opera: a triple bill evening with George Balanchine's Symphonie in C , Edwaard Liang 's Murmuration , and Daniel Proietto's Blanc ; a double bill evening with John Neumeier's Le Pavillon d'Armide and Le Sacre , and the Nureyev Gala 2017 . At the Vienna Volksoper two premieres followed: Thierry Malandain's Cendrillon (Cinderella), and a triple bill evening with Andrey Kaydanovskiy's Der Feuervogel (The Firebird), Eno Peci's Petruschka and András Lukács' Movements to Stravinsky . In his eighth season Legris presented three premieres at

2015-415: The Vienna State Opera: a triple bill evening with Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto , Wayne McGregor 's EDEN | EDEN , and Frederick Ashton's Marguerite and Armand ; Edward Clug 's Peer Gynt , and the Nureyev Gala 2018 . At the Vienna Volksoper one premiere followed: Davide Bombana 's Roméo et Juliette . In his ninth season he showed three premieres at the Vienna State Opera: his own choreography Sylvia ,

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2080-605: The Vienna Volksoper there were also three premieres with Stephan Thoss‘ Blaubarts Geheimnis (Bluebeard‘s Secret), Jorma Elo 's Ein Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummernight's Dream), and the ballet evening "Kreation und Tradition" (Creation and Tradition). The fourth season brought the three premieres: "Ballett-Hommage" (Ballet Homage) with William Forsythe 's The Second Detail , Natalia Horecna's Contra Clockwise Witness and Harald Lander 's Études , Swan Lake by Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov , and

2145-414: The arts. Among his new works, during 1928 in Paris, Balanchine premiered Apollon musagète (Apollo and the muses) in a collaboration with Stravinsky; it was one of his most innovative ballets, combining classical ballet and classical Greek myth and images with jazz movement. He described it as "the turning point in my life". Apollo is regarded as the original neoclassical ballet . Apollo brought

2210-519: The assistance of Lincoln Kirstein and Edward M.M. Warburg , the School of American Ballet opened to students on January 2, 1934, less than three months after Balanchine arrived in the U.S. Later that year, Balanchine had his students perform in a recital, where they premiered his new work Serenade to music by Tchaikovsky at Woodlands, the Warburg summer estate. The school of American Ballet became and

2275-609: The audience met them with dead silence. With expiring visas, they were not welcome in any other European country. They moved to Paris, where there was a large Russian community. At this time, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev invited Balanchine to join the Ballets Russes as a choreographer. Balanchine was 21 at the time and became the main choreographer for the most famous ballet company. Sergei Diaghilev insisted that Balanchine change his name from Balanchivadze to Balanchine. Diaghilev soon promoted Balanchine to ballet master of

2340-627: The ballerina Alexandra Danilova , from approximately 1924 to 1931. As The New York Times described their relationship in its obituary for Danilova: "She and Balanchine left the Soviet Union in 1924... Until 1931, she and Balanchine lived together as husband and wife, although they were never married. Balanchine was still officially married to another dancer, Tamara Geva, and he told Miss Danilova that because his marriage papers had been left behind in Russia, he feared it might be difficult to arrange

2405-515: The beauty of dance in its purest form. As the formalist David Michael Levin commented, “Balanchine has mastered the deepest logic of this intrinsic, expressive power of the human body”. Although ballet has been seen as a white European art form, scholars pointed out the African influence in Balanchine’s work, marking the African presence in American ballet. Moving to the United States, Balanchine

2470-418: The company and encouraged his choreography. Between 1924 and Diaghilev's death in 1929, Balanchine created ten ballets, as well as lesser works. During these years, he worked with composers such as Sergei Prokofiev , Igor Stravinsky , Erik Satie , and Maurice Ravel , and artists who designed sets and costumes, such as Pablo Picasso , Georges Rouault , and Henri Matisse , creating new works that combined all

2535-597: The company as the American Ballet Caravan and toured with it throughout North and South America, but it folded after several years. From 1944 to 1946, during and after World War II , Balanchine served as resident choreographer for Blum & Massine's new iteration of Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo . Soon Balanchine formed a new dance company, Ballet Society , again with the generous help of Lincoln Kirstein. He continued to work with contemporary composers such as Paul Hindemith , from whom he commissioned

2600-481: The culture minister of the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia , which became independent in 1918 but was later subsumed into the Soviet Union. The rest of the Georgian side of Balanchine's family consisted largely of artists and soldiers. Little is known of Balanchine's Russian, maternal side. His mother, Meliton's second wife, Maria Nikolayevna Vasilyeva, is said to be the daughter of Nikolai von Almedingen,

2665-532: The dancers. In February, 2010, resigned from Morphoses, which will continue to produce ballets without his name. An Emmy award-winning fly-on-the-wall television documentary Strictly Bolshoi followed Wheeldon as he became the first Englishman to be invited to create a new work for the Bolshoi Ballet . In the June/July 2009 issue of The Advocate , Wheeldon was featured on a list of artists who made

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2730-619: The evening time. He and his colleagues eventually performed this piece at the State School of Ballet. This was followed by another duet, Enigma , with the dancers in bare feet rather than ballet shoes . While teaching at the Mariinsky Ballet , he met Tamara Geva , his future wife. In 1923, with Geva and fellow dancers, Balanchine formed a small ensemble, the Young Ballet . In 1924, the Young Ballet managed to obtain

2795-487: The first. He quickly developed a reputation as a talented choreographer, and several other eminent ballet companies, such as the San Francisco Ballet , the Bolshoi Ballet , and the Royal Ballet, London have commissioned dances from him. As of May 2003, Wheeldon had composed at least 23 works. In November 2006, Wheeldon announced the formation of Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company , a transatlantic company with

2860-440: The help of financier Serge Denham, René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil formed the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo , a successor to Ballets Russes. The new company hired Leonide Massine and Balanchine as choreographers. Featured dancers included David Lichine and Tatiana Riabouchinska . In 1933, without consulting Blum, Col. de Basil dropped Balanchine after one year – ostensibly because he thought that audiences preferred

2925-552: The lead role) and featured a brand new score by Joby Talbot . In 2014, Wheeldon premiered another full-length ballet, The Winter's Tale for the Royal Ballet , Covent Garden , again a co-commission with the National Ballet of Canada , based on the Shakespeare play of the same name. It, too, featured a score by Joby Talbot and has been given generally good reviews – 'a ballet to keep' says The Daily Telegraph , and 'a spectacular full-length narrative work that will stand

2990-509: The male dancer to the forefront, giving him two solos within the ballet. Apollo is known for its minimalism, using simple costumes and sets. This allowed the audience not to be distracted from the movement. Balanchine considered music to be the primary influence on choreography, as opposed to the narrative. Due to a serious knee injury, Balanchine had to limit his dancing, effectively ending his performance career. So he decided to focus all his attention on choreography. After Diaghilev's death,

3055-473: The many writers who eulogized Balanchine, assessed his contribution: "It is hard to think of the ballet world without the colossal presence of George Balanchine ..." In his lifetime he created 465 works. Balanchine extended the traditions of classical ballet . His choreography remains the same to the present day and the School of American Ballet still uses his teaching technique . As one of the 20th century's best-known choreographers, his style and vision of ballet

3120-456: The plot of the story. Balanchine relocated his company to Hollywood in 1938, where he rented a white two-story house with "Kolya", Nicholas Kopeikine , his "rehearsal pianist and lifelong colleague", on North Fairfax Avenue not far from Hollywood Boulevard . Balanchine created dances for five movies, all of which featured Vera Zorina , whom he met on the set of The Goldwyn Follies and who subsequently became his second wife. He reconvened

3185-492: The several key elements in Balanchine’s works that scholars identify as developed under the African influence. Incorporating of African elements and dancers from an African cultural background made Balanchine’s works American. The phenomenon of cultural influences and combinations in his works represent the diversity in the American society. In 1923, Balanchine married Tamara Geva , a sixteen-year-old dancer. After later parting ways with Geva, he became romantically involved with

3250-480: The stage, and renewed his teaching from time to time to reflect the most up-to-date ideal concepts. Over the decades Balanchine shared his artistic insights with several of his students including: Articles Christopher Wheeldon Christopher Peter Wheeldon OBE (born 22 March 1973) is an English international choreographer of contemporary ballet . Born in Yeovil , Somerset , to an engineer and

3315-543: 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 Hollywood , creating his signature "neoclassical style". He was a choreographer known for his musicality ; he expressed music with dance and worked extensively with leading composers of his time like Igor Stravinsky . Balanchine

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3380-613: The test of time' says The Toronto Star . Wheeldon was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for "services to promoting the interests and reputation of British classical and theatrical dance worldwide". In December 2016, Wheeldon's Nutcracker was premiered by the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. Instead of the traditional upper-class party scene, Wheeldon has opted for

3445-553: The third season three premieres were staged at the Vienna State Opera: Rudolf Nureyev's Der Nussknacker (The Nutcracker), the quadruple bill evening "Tanzperspektiven" (Dance Perspectives) with David Dawson's A Million Kisses to My Skin , Helen Pickett 's Eventide , Patrick de Bana's Windspiele (Wind Chimes) and Jean-Christophe Maillot 's Vers un pays sage , and the Nuryev Gala 2013 . At

3510-430: The triple bill evening "Meisterwerke des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Masterpieces of the 20th Century) with Serge Lifar 's Suite en Blanc , Nils Christe's Before Nightfall , and Roland Petit 's L’Arlésienne , and the Nureyev Gala 2012 . At the Vienna Volksoper he presented a triple bill evening with Vesna Orlic's Carmina Burana , Boris Nebyla's Nachmittag eines Fauns (Afternoon of a Faun) and András Lukács' Bolero . During

3575-764: The triple bill evening with András Lucács' Movements to Stravinsky , Pontus Lidberg 's world premiere Between Dogs and Wolves , and Nacho Duato 's White Darkness , and the Nureyev Gala 2020 . At the Vienna Volksoper two more premieres are going to follow: Mauro Bigonzetti 's La Piaf , and the triple bill Appassionato - Bach und Vivaldi with Boris Nebyla's Il Prete Rosso , Eno Peci's Monkey Mind , and Martin Winter's Not Another Now . George Balanchine George Balanchine ( / ˈ b æ l ən ( t ) ʃ iː n , ˌ b æ l ən ˈ ( t ) ʃ iː n / ; born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze ; January 22, 1904 [ O.S. January 9] – April 30, 1983)

3640-458: The usual billing of "Dances staged by". This marked the first time in Broadway history that a dance-maker received choreography billing for a Broadway musical. On Your Toes featured two ballets: La Princesse Zenobia and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue , in which a tap dancer falls in love with a dance-hall girl. Balanchine's choreography in musicals was unique at the time because it furthered

3705-440: The works choreographed by Massine. Librettist Boris Kochno was also let go, while dancer Tamara Toumanova (a strong admirer of Balanchine) left the company when Balanchine was fired. Balanchine and Kochno immediately founded Les Ballets 1933 , with Kochno, Diaghilev's former secretary and companion, serving as artistic advisor. The company was financed by Edward James , a British poet and ballet patron. The company lasted only

3770-500: Was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th-century. 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. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music. Born in St. Petersburg , Russia, Balanchine took

3835-440: Was close to African American artists such as Katherine Dunham. According to dancers who worked with Balanchine such as Arthur Mitchell who comes from an African background, Balanchine would send students to Dunham or have dancers with an African background demonstrate skills common in African dance. The displacement of hips instead of vertical alignment, angular arms and flexed wrists, and the non-traditional timing of movements are

3900-685: Was dedicated in Balanchine's memory. A crater on Mercury was named in his honor. George Balanchine Way is a segment of West 63rd Street (located between Columbus Avenue and Broadway) in New York City that was renamed in his honor in June 1990. Playwright Richard Nelson wrote Nikolai and the Others , produced at the Mitzi Newhouse theater at Lincoln Center in 2013 with Michael Cerveris as Balanchine. Apart from his legacy in establishing

3965-412: Was diagnosed only after his death. He first showed symptoms during 1978 when he began losing his balance while dancing. As the disease progressed, his equilibrium, eyesight, and hearing deteriorated. By 1982, he was incapacitated. The night of his death, the company went on with its scheduled performance, which included Divertimento No. 15 and Symphony in C at Lincoln Center. Clement Crisp , one of

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4030-493: Was invited to America in 1933 by a young arts patron named Lincoln Kirstein , and together they founded the School of American Ballet in 1934 as well as the New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire, son of Georgian opera singer and composer Meliton Balanchivadze , one of the founders of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre and later

4095-425: Was named Soloist in 1998. Wheeldon began choreographing for the New York City Ballet in 1997, while continuing his career as a dancer. He retired as a dancer in 2000 in order to focus on his choreography. In 2001, Wheeldon became the New York City Ballet resident choreographer and first resident artist. He was productive in this position, choreographing a number of much lauded works for the troupe, Polyphonia being

4160-502: Was nominated for Best Direction of a Musical and Best Choreography at the Tony Awards , winning the latter. In 2023, he was a jury member at Prix de Lausanne ballet competitions. In 2024 Wheeldon created a new full-length ballet on commission for The Australian Ballet , Oscar , based on the life of Oscar Wilde . Wheeldon married yoga instructor Ross Rayburn in 2013. The ceremony took place on Fire Island , NY and

4225-528: Was trying to escape on a train from besieged Leningrad to Georgia. Based on his audition, during 1913 (at age nine), Balanchine relocated from rural Finland to Saint Petersburg and was accepted into the Imperial Ballet School , principal school of the Imperial Ballet , where he was a student of Pavel Gerdt and Samuil Andrianov (Gerdt's son-in-law). Balanchine spent the World War I years at

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