The Balanchine Method is a style of ballet, with an associated ballet technique and teaching method, attributed to the the dancer and choreographer George Balanchine. The Balanchine style of ballet is most closely associated with New York City Ballet, which Balanchine founded in 1948, and the School of American Ballet, which utilises a unique teaching method and technique, specially devised for training dancers in the Balanchine style. Use of the Balanchine method is widespread throughout North America.

Characteristics[link]

The overall illusion of the Balanchine method is that dancers are utilizing more space in less time, so that speed, height, length and a syncopated musicality are created.^[1]

• Dancers trained in this method develop extreme speed and very deep plié
• Greater emphasis on line, with use of unconventional arm and hand placement
• Pirouettes en-dehors taken from a lunge in 4th, rather than the conventional plié in 4th
• Distinctive arabesque line with the hip open to the audience, with the side arm pressed back
• Produces an athletic dance quality, demanding dancers to be extremely fit and flexible

References[link]

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Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine in Don Quixote

Suzanne Farrell (born August 16, 1945) is an eminent 20th century ballerina (often referred to as the greatest American lyric ballerina) and the founder of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

She was born as Roberta Sue Ficker in Cincinnati, and received her early training at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. In 1960 she was selected to study at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet with a Ford Foundation scholarship; she started there in 1960, and joined the New York City Ballet (NYCB) in 1961.

Career[link]

Early career at NYCB[link]

Initially part of the corps de ballet at NYCB, Farrell soon moved on to dancing featured roles. The first ballet choreographed for her was Passage, now Arcade, by John Taras in 1963. Balanchine first paired her with Jacques d' Amboise to choreograph his Meditation, which debuted in Winter 1963. One of her most notable roles was Dulcinea in Balanchine's Don Quixote, which premiered in May 1965. Balanchine performed in the of Don Quixote on opening night.^[1] She re-scaled many ballets and expanded them to a new level of technique. ^[2]In 1965 she was promoted to principal dancer. Her first role in her new title was Agon with Arthur Mitchell at the Paris Opera. George Balanchine quickly fell in love with his "alabaster princess", and created many roles for her. Farrell described learning choreography from Balanchine as a collaborative process, saying, "When Mr. B was working on a ballet, something would just spill out of his body; he could rarely duplicate it, so I tried to see precisely what he wanted the first time."^[3] In 1965 he created Don Quixote, thought to be a valentine to his newest "muse." In 1968 he cast her as the lead in the "Diamonds" section of his three-act plotless ballet "Jewels".

Balanchine was married to the polio-stricken former ballerina Tanaquil LeClerq, however, and Farrell was a Catholic. Though Balanchine divorced LeClerq to pursue Farrell, she instead married fellow dancer Paul Mejia.^[4]

When she married Mejia, another dancer in the company, in 1969, her bond with Balanchine suffered; and they left the New York City Ballet.^{[citation needed]} Invited to Europe (Belgium), Farrell danced for nearly six years with Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century. Her debut with the company was in a pas de deux choreographed by Bejart called Bach Sonate.^[5] She eventually returned to Balanchine and the New York City Ballet in 1975. Balanchine continued to create new ballets for her like Chaconne, Mozartiana, Tzigane, and Davidsbundlertanze. Farrell also found herself often paired with the Dane, Peter Martins. Her partnership with Balanchine lasted until his death in April 1983; his last works were solos for Farrell. Farrell retired from the New York City Ballet at age 44 on November 26th, 1989. She performed Sophisticated Lady and Vienna Waltzes. Farrell gave her final bow at State Theater with Lincoln Kirsten by her side.^[6]

Career as a dance teacher[link]

She had an unusually long performing career for a ballerina. Twenty-eight years of an occupation which takes a tremendous physical toll on the body began to come to an end in 1983. She started to develop arthritis in her right hip and despite two years of varied treatments, by 1985 (at the age of 40), her career on stage was almost over. She struggled for several years, but retired from performing in 1989.

She then moved on to passing on the ballets of Balanchine to the next generation of ballet dancers, working with famed companies around the world, such as those in Berlin and Vienna, as well as the Paris Opera Ballet, Kirov Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet. In 1993, the New York City Ballet dismissed her from her teaching position with the company.^[7] In 2000 Farrell became a professor in the Dance Department at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.

Career at the Kennedy Center[link]

In 2000 Suzanne Farrell started her own company, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, now a full-fledged company produced by the Kennedy Center.

Farrell's engagement with the Kennedy Center began in 1993 and 1994, when the Center offered two series of ballet master classes for students with Farrell. This series provided intermediate-to-advanced level ballet students, ages 13 to 17, an opportunity to study with one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Due to the uniqueness of Farrell's place in the ballet world and the quality of her teaching, the Kennedy Center expanded the program to a national level in 1995 in order to fulfill the Center's mission to enhance the arts education of America's young people. Farrell’s students learned to "turn up the technicolor in [their] movement," in order to achieve greater amplification in their dancing.^[3] This three weeks' long yearly initiative of intense study grew into a full-fledged program, Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell.

In the fall of 1999, Farrell received critical acclaim for the successful Kennedy Center engagement and East Coast tour of Suzanne Farrell Stages the Masters of 20th century Ballet. Following the Kennedy Center's debut, the newly named Suzanne Farrell Ballet, a group of professional dancers hand selected by Farrell, has since performed at the Kennedy Center during engagements in 2001 and 2002, been on an extensive East Coast tour, and returned to the Kennedy Center as part of the 2003–2004 Ballet Season following a 7-week national tour. Suzanne Farrell was selected as one of the five recipients of the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors, one of the highest honors for lifetime artistic achievement.

In 2007 the Suzanne Farrell Ballet formalized the creation of the Balanchine Preservation Initiative. This initiative introduces lost or rarely seen Balanchine works to audiences. As a result ballets like Ragtime(Balanchine/Stravinsky), Pithoprakta (Balanchine/Xenakis) and Divertimento Brillante (Balanchine/Glinka). ^[8]

Media[link]

Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell is an initiative of the Kennedy Center Education Department and is made possible in part by the U.S. Department of Education and the Kennedy Center Corporate Fund. Additional support is provided by the Margaret Abell Powell Fund. Suzanne Farrell was prominently featured in Balanchine (2004) a documentary about the life of George Balanchine.

Awards[link]

President George W. Bush and Laura Bush pose with the Kennedy Center honorees, from left to right, actress Julie Harris, actor Robert Redford, singer Tina Turner, ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell and singer Tony Bennett on December 4, 2005, during the reception in the Blue Room at the White House.

Farrell has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University, among others. She has also been a tenured professor of dance at Florida State University since 2000, and in 2003 she received the National Medal of Arts.

She was celebrated in 2005 at the Kennedy Center Honors as one of the most influential ballerinas of the 20th century. She also was the 2005 recipient of the Capezio Dance Award. Farrell was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2009.

Further reading and viewing[link]

• Suzanne Farrell, Toni Bentley, Holding on to the Air (Summit Books, New York, 1990)
• Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse, a 1996 documentary film
• Suzanne Farrell – Elusive Muse, (Directed by Anne Belle and Deborah Dickson 1990)

Quotes[link]

• "Life is hard; it’s meant to be a test, but while you’re studying for that test, isn’t it nice to be dancing."^[3]
• "I'm thought of as a cool unemotional dancer but inside I'm most certainly not. As soon as I hear music something in me starts to vibrate."
• "When you get on a stage you can do anything."
• "When I first met Peter [Martins], I said to Mr. B, 'Well, at least he's tall.' I did not even think about how handsome he was. And he was very handsome."
• "In my youth I have always been drawn to dance. It made me feel sexy and have confidence."

References[link]

Movie reviews[link]

• New York Times, October 7, 1996

External links[link]

• The Suzanne Farrell Ballet
• Archival footage of Suzanne Farrell speaking about Balanchine and technique in 2006 at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
• Archival footage of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet performing Clarinade in 2006 at Jacob's Pillow.
• Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell
• Photos of Suzanne Farrell courtesy of Getty Images
• The Ballerina Gallery – Suzanne Farrell
• Horstman, Barry M (April 19, 1999). "Suzanne Farrell: She shaped new generation of dancers". The Cincinnati Post (E. W. Scripps Company). Archived from the original on May 17, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070517104605/http://www.cincypost.com/living/1999/farrel041999.html. 
• Capezio Dance Award – Suzanne Farrell 2005
• 2003 BOMB Magazine interview of Suzanne Farrell by Emily Fragos

v t e Ballet General information ballets companies glossary history music timeline Ballet terminology Ballet d'action Barre Ballet blanc Comic ballet Contemporary ballet Ballets de cour Demi-soloist Divertissement Narrative ballet Neoclassical ballet Opéra-ballet Pas de deux Pas de quatre Pas de trois Pièce d'occasion Pointe shoes Romantic ballet Turnout Tutu Variation Ballet by genre character classical contemporary neoclassical Ballet by region British French Italian Russian Dancers American British French Russian Technique Balanchine Bournonville Cecchetti Royal Academy Vaganova Ballet apparel dance belt leotard pointe shoes slippers tights tutu unitard Schools The National Ballet School of Canada Stuttgart Ballet Cuban National Ballet School Elmhurst School for Dance English National Ballet School Moscow State Academy of Choreography Royal Ballet School School of American Ballet La Scala Theatre Ballet School Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet Royal Winnipeg Ballet Companies American Ballet Theatre Anaheim Ballet Atlanta Ballet Ballet Manila Ballet Philippines Barcelona Ballet Berlin State Ballet Birmingham Royal Ballet Bolshoi Ballet Boston Ballet Cairo Opera Ballet Company Cape Town City Ballet Carolina Ballet Cincinnati Ballet Cuban National Ballet Dayton Ballet Donetsk Ballet Dutch National Ballet English National Ballet Finnish National Ballet Georgian National Ballet Greek National Opera Guangzhou Ballet Hamburg Ballet Hong Kong Ballet Houston Ballet Iaşi Romanian National Opera Iranian National Ballet Company Joffrey Ballet K-ballet Kiev Ballet Korea National Ballet Company La Scala Theatre Ballet Les Ballets de Monte Carlo Les Grands Ballets Canadiens Los Angeles Ballet Mariinsky Ballet Moldova National Opera Ballet National Ballet of Canada National Ballet of China National Ballet Theater of Puerto Rico National Opera and Ballet National Theatre Munich New Jersey Ballet New York City Ballet Norwegian National Opera and Ballet Oklahoma City Ballet Oregon Ballet Theatre Pacific Northwest Ballet Paris Opera Ballet Philippine Ballet Theatre Polish National Ballet Queensland Ballet Royal Danish Ballet Royal New Zealand Ballet Royal Swedish Ballet Royal Winnipeg Ballet San Francisco Ballet Scottish Ballet Shanghai Ballet Company Spanish National Dance Company Stuttgart Ballet The Australian Ballet The Royal Ballet Tokyo Ballet Tulsa Ballet Universal Ballet West Australian Ballet Ballet portal Did you know? today's news today's article today's biography today's picture recent news 2009 2008

George Balanchine, born Giorgi Balanchivadze (Georgian: გიორგი ბალანჩივაძე, Russian: Георгий Мелитонович Баланчивадзе) (January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1904 – April 30, 1983), was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States and the co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet.^[1] He was a choreographer known for his musicality; he expressed music with dance and worked extensively with Igor Stravinsky. Thirty-nine of his more than four hundred ballets were choreographed to music by Stravinsky.^[2]

Biography[link]

Georgia and Russia[link]

Balanchine was born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother.^[3] Balanchine's family comprised largely composers and soldiers. His father was a noted Georgian composer Meliton Balanchivadze (1862–1937), one of the initiators of the Georgian Opera, while his mother was a Russian ballet aficionado.^[3] George's brother, Andria Balanchivadze (1906–1992), became a well-known Georgian composer. As a child, Balanchine was not particularly interested in ballet but his mother loved the arts and had the young Giorgi audition with his sister, who shared her mother's passion for ballet.

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 (Pavel's son-in-law).^[4] After the Bolsheviks won the Russian Revolution of 1917, they closed and disbanded the school as an elitist symbol of the Czarist regime. To survive the privation and martial law of this period, Balanchine played the piano — for food, not for money — at cabarets and silent movie theaters. Eventually the Imperial Ballet School reopened, but with greatly reduced funding from the government. After graduating with honors 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 the Mariinsky Ballet). His studies at the conservatory included advanced piano, music theory, counterpoint, harmony, and composition. Balanchine graduated from the conservatory during 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). This was followed by another duet, Enigma, with the dancers in bare feet rather than ballet shoes. During 1923, with fellow dancers, Balanchine formed a small ensemble, the Young Ballet. The choreography proved too experimental for the new authorities.

Marriages[link]

In 1922, when Balanchine was eighteen years old, he married Tamara Geva, a fifteen-year-old dancer. After his divorce from Geva, Balanchine was with Alexandra Danilova from 1926 through 1933. He married and divorced three more times, all to women who were his dancers: Vera Zorina (December 1938 – 1946), Maria Tallchief (1946–1952), and Tanaquil Le Clercq (1952–1969). He did not have any children.

Escape to the West[link]

On a 1924 visit to Germany with the Soviet State Dancers, Balanchine, his wife Tamara Geva, and the dancers Alexandra Danilova, and Nicholas Efimov fled to Paris, where there was a large Russian community of families exiled by the Revolution. The impresario Sergei Diaghilev, another Russian exile, asked Balanchine to join his newly formed Ballets Russes as a choreographer. Diaghilev drew from all the contemporary arts to create a company with great influence.^[4]

Ballets Russes[link]

Diaghilev soon promoted Balanchine to ballet master of the company and encouraged his choreography. Between 1924 and Diaghilev's death in 1929, Balanchine created nine ballets, as well as lesser works. During these years, he worked with major composers, such as Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie and Ravel, and artists who designed sets and costumes, such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, and Henri Matisse, creating new works that combined all 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".^[5]

Apollo 1928

Suffering a serious knee injury, Balanchine had to limit his dancing, effectively ending his performance career. After Diaghilev's death, the Ballets Russes became somewhat disorganized. 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.

When part of the Ballets Russes settled in Monte Carlo, Balanchine joined them and accepted a job as ballet master; directed by René Blum, the company was then named the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. He choreographed three ballets: Cotillon, La Concurrence, and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. His protégée in Monte Carlo was the young Tamara Toumanova, one of the original three "baby ballerinas" that the director had selected from the Russian exile community of Paris.

When Blum gave control of the company to Colonel W. de Basil, Balanchine left the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo to act as principal choreographer for the newly-founded Les Ballets 1933. The company was financed by Edward James, a British ballet patron. Boris Kochno, Diaghilev's former secretary and companion, served as artistic advisor. The company lasted only 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, and Henri Sauguet, and designer Pavel Tchelitchew.

Lincoln Kirstein, a young American arts patron recently graduated from Harvard University, saw Les Ballets 1933. With the goal of establishing a ballet company in the United States, he met with and quickly persuaded Balanchine to relocate there with his assistance. By October of that year, Kirstein had brought Balanchine to New York, where he would begin influencing the character, training and techniques of American ballet and dance.

United States[link]

Architect Philip Johnson designed the New York State Theater to Balanchine's specifications.

Balanchine insisted that his first project would be to establish a ballet school because he wanted to develop dancers who had the strong technique and style he wanted. Compared to his classical training, he thought they could not dance well. With the assistance of Lincoln Kirstein and Edward M.M. Warburg, the School of American Ballet opened to students on January 2, 1934, less than 3 months after Balanchine arrived in the U.S. Later that year, Balanchine had his students play a recital, where they premiered his new work Serenade to music by Tchaikovsky at the Warburg's summer estate. The work, modified by Balanchine over the years, remains a signature work of New York City Ballet nearly eighty years after its premiere.

Between his ballet activities in the 1930s and 1940s, Balanchine choreographed for musical theater with such notables as Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Vernon Duke.^[6] He greatly admired Fred Astaire, describing him as "the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times... you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing—- a pause here, a move there. It was all Astaire originally."

During 1935, Balanchine formed a professional company named the American Ballet. After failing to organize a tour, the company began performing as the house company for the Metropolitan Opera. In 1936, Balanchine staged Gluck's opera Orfeo and Eurydice and during 1937 an evening of dance works all choreographed to the music of Igor Stravinsky.

Relocation to West Coast[link]

Balanchine relocated his company to Hollywood during 1938, where he rented a white two-story house with "Kolya", Nicholas Kopeikine, his "rehearsal pianist and lifelong colleague",^[7] 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 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 the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Return to New York[link]

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, for example, Paul Hindemith, from whom he commissioned 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 the New York City Center. With that arrangement, Ballet Society officially became New York City Ballet in 1948.

In 1955, 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. One of its most famous productions, The Nutcracker has been a money-making tradition for NYCB and other companies that perform it. It was filmed for theatrical release in 1993 by director Emile Ardolino, danced by NYCB with specially written narration spoken by Kevin Kline and released on DVD by Warner Brothers Home Video.

Balanchine with Suzanne Farrell in Don Quixote.

When Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts was constructed, NYCB was offered the New York State Theater (renamed the David H. Koch Theater since 2008 when the billionaire made a donation of one hundred million dollars for major renovations). Balanchine collaborated with architect Philip Johnson in determining its design and finally had a theater large enough for the works he wanted to stage when the house opened in 1964. He often created large-scale works there, from American themes and Broadway, such as Stars and Stripes for the premiere performance, to drawing from European traditions and music, such as his 1977 Vienna Waltzes, a lavishly designed one-hour ballet choreographed to music by Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár, and Richard Strauss.

During the 1960s, Balanchine created and revised nearly forty ballets including in 1965 a rare foray into the genre of evening-length story ballets, Don Quixote in which he played the title role. His created the lead female role for Suzanne Farrell, the young ballerina of whom he was greatly enamored at the time and for whom he would create many roles until the end of his career. Among the most notable is the Diamonds section of the plotless evening-length three-act ballet Jewels to music of Tchaikovsky. Some ballerinas, including his former wife Maria Tallchief, quit the company, citing his obsession with Farrell as the reason. Balanchine obtained a Mexican divorce from then-wife Tanaquil LeClercq during this time.

In the summer of 1972, a year after the death of Stravinsky, Balanchine staged another Stravinsky Festival, for which he choreographed several major new works including the "miracle" ballets Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Symphony in Three Movements, both of which premiered on June 18, 1972.

Death[link]

After years of illness, Balanchine died on April 30, 1983, in New York City of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, 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.^[8] In his last years, Balanchine also suffered from angina and underwent heart bypass surgery.^[9]

Legacy and honors[link]

• 1978, Balanchine received the Kennedy Center Honors Award the first year the awards were given.
• With his School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet, and 400 choreographed works, Balanchine transformed American dance and created modern ballet, developing a unique style with his dancers highlighted by brilliant speed and attack.
• 1987, posthumously inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame.
• Presidential Freedom of Honor Medal
• Balanchine 100: The Centennial Celebration ^[10]

Selected Choreographed Works[link]

For Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev[link]

• Le Chant du Rossignol (The Song of the Nightingale) (1925)
• Jack in the Box (1926)
• Pastorale (1926)
• Barabau (1926)
• La Chatte (1927)
• Le Triomphe de Neptune (1927)
• Apollo (1928)
• The Prodigal Son (1929)
• Le Bal (1929)

For Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo[link]

• Cotillon (1932)
• Concurrence (1932)
• Balustrade (1941)
• Danses Concertantes (1944 and 1972)
• La Sonnambula (1946)

For Les Ballets 1933[link]

• The Seven Deadly Sins (1933)
• Errante (1933)
• Les Songes (1933)
• Fastes (1933)

For the American Ballet[link]

• Alma Mater (1934)
• Les Songes (Dreams) (1934)
• Mozartiana (1934)
• Serenade (1935)
• Errante (1935)
• Reminiscence (1935)
• Jeu de cartes (variously, Card Game or The Card Party) (1937)
• Le Baiser de la Fée (originally titled The Fairy's Kiss) (1937)

For Broadway[link]

• Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
  • Words without Music: A Surrealist Ballet, a production number for the singing and dancing ensemble
  • Night Flight, a solo for Harriet Hoctor
  • 5 A.M., a number for Josephine Baker and male dancers
• On Your Toes (1936), music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart; starring Tamara Geva and Ray Bolger
  • Princess Zenobia Ballet (1936)
  • Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1936)

This dramatic ballet served as the climax of this musical production and has subsequently been presented as a stand-alone piece; however, several of the sung numbers in the show featured dance routines as well, notably the title number.

• Babes in Arms (1937), by Rodgers and Hart
• I Married an Angel (1938), by Rodgers and Hart; starring Vera Zorina
• The Boys from Syracuse (1938), by Rodgers and Hart
• Great Lady (1938), music by Frederick Loewe
• Keep Off the Grass (1940), a musical revue
• Lousiana Purchase (1940), music and lyrics by Irving Berlin; with William Gaxton and Vera Zorina
• Cabin in the Sky (1940), music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John Latouche; starring Ethel Waters and Katherine Dunham, who collaborated with Balanchine on the choreography
• The Lady Comes Across (1942), by Duke and Latouche; a notable flop
• Rosalinda (1942), an operetta with music by Johann Strauss
• The Merry Widow (1943), an operetta with music by Franz Lehár
• What's Up? (1943), lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe
• Dream with Music (1944), a musical fantasy starring Vera Zorina
• Song of Norway (1944), an operetta based on the life and music of Edvard Grieg; Balanchine's most successful Broadway show
• Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston (1945), another flop
• The Chocolate Soldier (1947), an operetta with music by Oscar Straus
• Where's Charley? lyrics and music by Frank Loesser, a long-running show starring Ray Bolger
• Courtin' Time (1951), music and lyrics by Don Walker and Jack Lawrence
• House of Flowers (1954), music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Truman Capote and Harold Arlen; starring [[Pearl Bailey[[, Diahann Carroll, and Juanita Hall; Balanchine's choreography was rearranged by Herbert Ross before the Broadway opening

For Hollywood[link]

• The Goldwyn Follies (1938), with Vera Zorina and William Dollar as principal dancers
  • "Romeo and Juliet," with ballet dancers as the Capulets and tap dancers as the Montagues
  • "Water Nymph Ballet," in which Zorina rose from the depths of a pool
• On Your Toes (1939), the film version of the Broadway show, starring Vera Zorina and Eddie Albert
• I Was an Adventuress (1940), starring Vera Zorina
• Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), a wartime morale booster for military troops
  • "That Old Black Magic," sung by Johnny Johnston, danced by Vera Zorina
• Follow the Boys (1944), with Vera Zorina and George Raft

For American Ballet Caravan[link]

• Ballet Imperial (later referred to as the Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2) (1941)
• Concerto Barocco (1941)

For the Ballet del Teatro de Colón[link]

• Mozart Violin Concerto (1942)

For Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo[link]

• Song of Norway (1944)
• Danses Concertantes (1944)
• Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1944)
• Pas de Deux (Grand adagio) (1945)
• The Night Shadow (1946)
• Raymonda (1946)

For Ballet Theatre[link]

• Waltz Academy (1944)
• Theme and Variations (1947)

For Ballet Society[link]

• The Four Temperaments (1946)
• L'enfant et Les Sortilèges (The Spellbound Child) (1946)^[11]
• Haieff Divertimento (1947)
• Symphonie Concertante (1947)
• Orpheus (1948)

For the Paris Opera Ballet[link]

• Palais de Cristal (renamed Symphony in C) (1947)

For Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas[link]

• Pas de Trois Classique (also known as Minkus Pas de Trois) (1948)

For New York City Ballet[link]

• La Sonnambula (1946)
• Bourrée Fantasque (1949)
• The Firebird (1949; later revised with Jerome Robbins)
• Sylvia Pas De Deux (1950)
• Swan Lake (after Lev Ivanov) (1951)
• La Valse (1951)
• Harlequinade Pas De Deux (1952)
• Metamorphoses (1952)
• Scotch Symphony (1952)
• Valse Fantaisie (1953/1967)
• The Nutcracker (1954)
• Ivesiana (1954)
• Western Symphony (1954)
• Glinka Pas De Trois (1955)
• Pas De Dix (1955)
• Divertimento No. 15 (1956)
• Allegro Brillante (1956)
• Agon (1957)
• Square Dance (1957)
• Gounod Symphony (1958)
• Stars and Stripes (a ballet in 5 "campaigns")' (1958)
• Episodes (1959)
• Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (1960)
• Monumentum pro Gesualdo (1960)
• Donizetti Variations (1960)
• Liebeslieder Walzer (1960)
• Raymonda Variations (1961)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962)
• Bugaku (1963)
• Meditation (1963)
• Movements for Piano and Orchestra (1963)
• Harlequinade (1965)
• Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966)
• Jewels (1967)
  • Emeralds
  • Rubies
  • Diamonds
• La Source (1968)
• Who Cares (1970)
• Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 (1970)
• Stravinsky Festival (1972)
  • Pulcinella (with Jerome Robbins)
  • Stravinsky Violin Concerto
  • Symphony in Three Movements
  • Duo Concertant
  • Lost Sonata
  • Divertimento from "Le Baiser de la fée"
  • Choral Variations on Bach's "Vom Himmel Hoch"
  • Danses Concertantes
  • Scherzo Á La Russe
• Cortège Hongrois (1973)
• Coppélia (1974)
• Variations pour une porte et un soupir (1974)
• Ravel Festival (1975)
  • Sonatine
  • Tzigane
  • Le tombeau de Couperin
  • Pavane
  • Shéhérazade
  • Gaspard de la Nuit
  • Rapsodie Espagnole
• The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1975)
• Chaconne (1976)
• Union Jack (1976)
• Vienna Waltzes (1977)
• Ballo della Regina (1978)
• Kammermusik No. 2 (1978)
• Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze (1980)
• Walpurgisnacht Ballet (1980)
• Tschaikovsky Festival (1981)
  • Garland Dance from The Sleeping Beauty
  • Mozartiana
• Stravinsky Centennial Celebration (1982)
  • Élégie

For New York City Opera[link]

• Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1979)

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Taper, Bernard (1996). George Balanchine: A Biography. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20639-8. 

• Schorer, Suki (1999). On Balanchine Technique. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-45060-2. 

• Joseph, Charles M. (2002). Stravinsky and Balanchine, A Journey of Invention. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08712-8. 

• Gottlieb, Robert (2004). George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-075070-7. 

• Goldner, Nancy (2008). Balanchine Variations. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 

• Goldner, Nancy (2011). More Balanchine Variations. Gainesville: University Press of Flordia. 

See also[link]

• Balanchine method
• List of Russian ballet dancers
• List of ballets by George Balanchine
• List of Eastern Bloc defectors
• Category: Ballets by George Balanchine

Articles[link]

• Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times, June 30, 2003
• Robert Gottlieb,"Keeper of the Jewels", The New York Review of Books, volume 55, number 15, October 9, 2008
• Anna Kisselgoff, obituary, Sunday New York Times, May 1, 1983

External links[link]

• George Balanchine at the Internet Movie Database
  • Biography for George Balanchine at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website George Balanchine Foundation
• Official website George Balanchine Trust
• Official website NYCB
  • Official website SAB
• Firebird performed by Maria Tallchief and Michael Maule, Jacob's Pillow, 1951
  • Suzanne Farrell on Balanchine: More than Technique Jacob's Pillow, 2006
• George Balanchine: Master of the Dance American Masters, PBS, January 14, 2004
• Guide to George Balanchine archive at Houghton Library Harvard University

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2009)

Karl Lagerfeld
Lagerfeld at the Red Cross Ball in Monaco, August 2005
Born	(1933-09-10) 10 September 1933 (age 78) Hamburg, Germany
Residence	France
Nationality	German
Occupation	Fashion designer
Labels	Karl Lagerfeld (since 1974,various brands)[1] Chanel (since 1983)[2] Fendi (since 1965),[3] Chloe (1963–1978, 1992–1997),[4] Jean Patou (1958–1963),[1] H&M (2004), Hogan (2011)

Karl Lagerfeld (born Karl Otto Lagerfeldt on 10 September 1933 in Hamburg) is a German fashion designer, artist and photographer based in Paris. He has collaborated on a variety of fashion and art related projects, most notably as head designer and creative director for the fashion house Chanel. Lagerfeld has his own label fashion house, as well as the Italian house Fendi.

Early life[link]

Lagerfeld was born in Hamburg. He has claimed he was born in 1938, by Elisabeth (born Bahlman) and his Swedish father Otto Lagerfeldt.^[5] He is known to insist that no-one knows his real birth date: Interviewed on French television in February 2009, Lagerfeld said that he was "born neither in 1933 nor 1938."^[6] His older sister, Martha Christiane (a.k.a. Christel), was born in 1931. Lagerfeld also has an older half-sister, Thea, from his father's first marriage. His original name was Lagerfeldt (with a "t"), but he later changed it to Lagerfeld as "it sounds more commercial."^[7]

Lagerfeld grew up as the son of a wealthy businessman from Hamburg who was introducing condensed milk (Glücksklee-Milch GmbH) to Germany;^[8][9] his mother is from Berlin.^[10] According to Alicia Drake,^[vague] Lagerfeld's mother, Elisabeth Bahlmann, was a lingerie saleswoman in Berlin when she met her husband and married him in 1930.

After attending a private school, Lagerfield finished his secondary education at the Lycée Montaigne in Paris, where he majored in drawing and history.^[11]

Early career (Balmain and Patou)[link]

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In 1955, at the age of 22, Lagerfeld was awarded a position as an apprentice at Pierre Balmain after winning second place, behind Yves Saint-Laurent, in a competition for a coat sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat. He told a reporter a few years later, "I won on coats, but actually I like designing coats least of all. What I really love are little black dresses." Yves Saint Laurent also won the contest for a dress award. "Yves was working for Dior. Other young people I knew were working for Balenciaga (Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house), whom they thought was God, but I wasn't so impressed," he recalled in 1976.^{[citation needed]}

In 1958, after three years at Balmain, he moved to Jean Patou where he designed two haute couture collections a year for five years. His first collection was shown in a two-hour presentation in July 1958, but he used the name Roland Karl, rather than Karl Lagerfeld (although in 1962, reporters began referring to him as Karl Lagerfelt or Karl Logerfeld). The first collection was poorly received. Carrie Donovan wrote that "the press booed the collection"^{[citation needed]}. The UPI noted: "The firm's brand new designer, 25-year old Roland Karl, showed a collection which stressed shape and had no trace of last year's sack." The reporter went on to say that "A couple of short black cocktail dresses were cut so wide open at the front that even some of the women reporters gasped. Other cocktail and evening dresses feature low, low-cut backs." Most interestingly, Karl said that his design silhouette for the season was called by the letter "K" (for Karl), which was translated into a straight line in front, curved in at the waist in the back, with a low fullness to the skirt.

His skirts for the spring 1960 season were the shortest in Paris, and the collection was not well received. Carrie Donovan said it "looked like clever and immensely salable ready-to-wear, not couture." In his late 1960 collection he designed special little hats, pancake shaped circles of satin, which hung on the cheek. He called them "slaps in the face." Karl's collection were said to be well received, but not groundbreaking. "I became bored there, too, and I quit and tried to go back to school, but that didn't work, so I spent two years mostly on beaches – I guess I studied life."

Freelance career (1962–1982)[link]

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After launching himself as a freelance designer, working with brands such as Mario Valentino, Repetto, and the supermarket chain Monoprix and with financial backing from his family, he set up a small shop in Paris. At this time, he would often consult with Madame Zereakian, Christian Dior's Armenian fortune teller. Lagerfeld later said, "She told me I'd succeed in fashion and perfume."

In 1963, he began designing for Tiziani, a Roman couture house founded that year by Evan Richards (b. 1924) of Jacksboro, Texas. It began as couture and then branched out into ready-to-wear, bearing the label "Tiziani-Roma – Made in England." Lagerfeld and Richards sketched the first collection in 1963 together. "When they wound up with 90 outfits, Tiziani threw caution and invitations to the winds, borrowed Catherine the Great's jewels from Harry Winston, and opened his salon with a three-night wingding," according to one report in 1969. Lagerfeld designed for the company until 1969. Elizabeth Taylor was a fan of the label (she referred to Evan as "Evan Tiziani") and began wearing it in August 1966. Gina Lollobrigida, Doris Duke and Principessa Borghese were also customers while Lagerfeld was designing the line. He was replaced in 1969 with Guy Douvier.

Lagerfeld had begun to freelance for French fashion house Chloe in 1964, at first designing a few pieces a season. As more and more pieces were incorporated, he would soon design the entire collection. In 1970, he also began a brief design collaboration with Roman Haute Couture house Curiel (the designer, a woman named Gigliola Curiel, died in November 1969.) His first collection was described as having a "drippy drapey elegance" designed for a "1930s cinema queen." The Curiel mannequins all wore identical, short-cropped blonde wigs. He also showed black velvet shorts, to be worn under a black velvet ankle-length cape.

His Chloe collection for Spring 1973 (shown in October 1972) garnered headlines for offering something both "high fashion and high camp." He showed loose Spencer jackets and printed silk shirt jackets. He designed something he called a "surprise" skirt, which was ankle-length, pleated silk, so loose that it hid the fact it was actually pants. "It seems that wearing these skirts is an extraordinary sensation," he told a reporter at the time. He also designed a look inspired by Carmen Miranda, which consisted of mini bra dresses with very short skirts, and long dresses with bra tops and scarf shawls.

In 1972, he began to collaborate with Italian fashion house Fendi, designing furs, clothing and accessories.

Starting in the 1970s, Lagerfeld has occasionally worked as a costume designer for theatrical productions. He collaborated with stage directors such as Luca Ronconi and Jürgen Flimm, and designed for theatres like La Scala in Milan (Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz, 1980; directed by Ronconi), the Burgtheater in Vienna (Komödie der Verführung by Arthur Schnitzler, 1980; directed by Horst Zankl), and the Salzburg Festival (Der Schwierige by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1990; directed by Flimm).

International fame (1982–present)[link]

Lagerfeld at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival

At the time, he had also been maintaining a design contract with the Japanese firm Isetan, to create collections for both men and women through 30 licenses; had a lingerie line in the US, produced by Eve Stillmann; was designing shoes for Charles Jourdan, sweaters for Ballantyne, and worked with Trevira as a fashion adviser.

In 2002, Karl Lagerfeld asked Renzo Rosso, the founder of Diesel, to collaborate with him on a special denim collection for the Lagerfeld Gallery.^[12] The collection, which was titled Lagerfeld Gallery by Diesel, was co-designed by Lagerfeld and then developed by Diesel's Creative Team, under the supervision of Rosso. It consisted of five pieces that were presented during the designer's catwalk shows during Paris Fashion Week^[13] and then sold in very strict limited editions at the Lagerfeld Galleries in Paris and Monaco, and at the Diesel Denim Galleries in New York and Tokyo. During the first week of sales in New York, more than 90% of the trousers had already been sold out, even though prices ranged from as high as $240 to $1,840.^[14] In a statement after the show in Paris, Rosso said "I am honored to have met this fashion icon of our time. Karl represents creativity, tradition and challenge, and the fact that he thought of Diesel for this collaboration is a great gift and acknowledgement of our reputation as the prêt-à-porter of casual wear."^[13]

Lagerfeld designed the costumes for the Carmen sequences in the 2002 film Callas Forever. In 2004, he designed some outfits for the international music artist Madonna, for her Re-Invention tour, and recently designed outfits for Kylie Minogue's Showgirl tour.

Lagerfeld collaborated with the international Swedish fashion brand H&M. On 12 November 2004, H&M offered a limited range of different Lagerfeld clothes in chosen outlets for both women and men. Only two days after having supplied its outlets, H&M announced that almost all the clothes were sold out. Lagerfeld has expressed some fear that working with lower-end brands will taint his image,^{[citation needed]} although in the past he has worked closely with the hosiery designer Wolford.

Lagerfeld is also a photographer. He produced Visionaire 23: The Emperor's New Clothes, a series of nude pictures of models and celebrities. He also personally photographed Mariah Carey for the cover of V magazine in 2005. In addition to his editorial work for Harper's Bazaar, Numéro and the Russian and German editions of Vogue, Lagerfeld photographs advertising campaigns for the houses under his direction (Chanel, Fendi and his eponymous line) every season.

In the 1980s, the Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" was published with drawings by Lagerfeld.

The designer was also the subject of a French reality series called Signé Chanel in 2005. The show covered the creation of his Fall/Winter 2004–2005 Chanel couture collection. It aired on Sundance Channel in the United States during the fall of 2006.

He has also supported and encouraged the work of up and coming designers including Philip Colbert of Rodnik.^{[citation needed]}

On 18 December 2006, Lagerfeld announced the launch of a new collection for men and women dubbed K Karl Lagerfeld. The collection includes fitted T-shirts and a wide range of jeans.^[15]

Lagerfeld has signed a deal with Dubai Infinity Holdings (DIH); an investments enterprise that will focus on first of its kind projects in non conventional growth sectors, in line with their mandate^[vague] to fulfil unmet market needs. Lagerfeld is to design limited edition homes^[vague] on Isla Moda, the world’s first dedicated fashion island,^[vague] set in the iconic^[vague] development, The World. This will be a collaboration between Dubai Infinity Holdings and Lagerfeld across the GCC and India.^{[citation needed]}

Lagerfeld is the host of fictional radio station "K109 – The Studio" in the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV.^[16]

In 2008, Lagerfeld created a teddy bear in his likeness produced by Steiff in a limited-edition of 2,500 that sold for $1,500.^[17] Lagerfeld has been immortalized in many forms: pins, shirts, dolls, and more. In 2009, Tra Tutti began selling Karl Lagermouse and Karl Lagerfelt, mini Lagerfelds in the form of mice and finger puppets respectively.^[18]

Lagerfeld with the Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco, 2011

On 10 September 2010, the Couture Council of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology presented Lagerfeld with an award created for him, "The Couture Council Fashion Visionary Award", at a benefit luncheon at Avery Fisher Hall, New York.^[19]

On 10 November 2010, Lagerfeld and Swedish crystal manufacturer Orrefors announced a collaboration for designing a crystal art collection.^[20] The first collection was launched in spring 2011 under the name "Orrefors by Karl Lagerfeld".^[21]

Controversies[link]

In 1993, he caused US Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour to walk out of his Milan Fashion Week runway show when he employed strippers and adult film star Moana Pozzi to model his black-and-white collection for Fendi.^[22]

There was much controversy from Lagerfeld's use of a verse from the Qur'an in his spring 1994 couture collection for Chanel, despite apologies from the designer and the fashion house. The controversy erupted after the 1994 couture show in Paris, when the Indonesian Muslim Scholars Council in Jakarta called for a boycott of Chanel and threatened to file formal protests with the government of Mr. Lagerfeld's homeland, Germany. The designer apologized, explaining that he had taken the design from a book about the Taj Mahal, thinking the words came from a love poem.^[23]

Lagerfeld was the target of a pieing by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 2001 at a fashion premiere at Lincoln Center in New York City. The tofu pies hurled by animal rights activists in protest of his use of fur within his collections, however went astray and hit Calvin Klein. A PETA spokesperson described the hit on Klein as "friendly fire", calling Klein, who doesn't use fur, "a great friend to the animals", while he called Lagerfeld a "designer dinosaur" who continues to use fur in his collections.^[24]

Lagerfeld defends the fur industry and the use of fur in fashion, although he himself doesn't wear fur and hardly eats meat. In a BBC interview in 2009 he claimed that hunters "make a living having learnt nothing else than hunting, killing those beasts who would kill us if they could", and maintained that "in a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish." Spokespersons for PETA called Lagerfeld "a fashion dinosaur who is as out of step as his furs are out of style",^[25] and "particularly delusional with his kill-or-be-killed mentality. When was the last time a person's life was threatened by a mink or rabbit?"^[26]

In 2010, PETA quotes Lagerfeld, who used fake fur in his 2010 Chanel collection, on their website as saying: "It's the triumph of fake fur … because fake fur changed so much and became so great now that you can hardly see a difference."^[27]

Lagerfeld in 2009 joined critics of supermodel Heidi Klum. After German designer Wolfgang Joop called Klum, who had posed naked on the cover of the German edition of GQ magazine,^[28] "no runway model. She is simply too heavy and has too big a bust",^[29] Lagerfeld followed suit by saying that neither he nor Claudia Schiffer knew Klum as she has never worked in Paris and is insignificant in the world of high fashion, being "more bling bling and glamorous than current fashion."^[30]

Lagerfeld created an international furore on 9 February 2012, when he called the singer Adele" A little too fat". This caused instant fury throughout the United Kingdom and Lagerfeld responded with a statement of apology. Adele hit back by saying she is like the majority of women, and she is very proud of that fact.^[31][32]

Weight loss[link]

When Lagerfeld lost 42 kg (roughly 92.6 pounds) in 13 months in 2001, his explanation was "...I suddenly wanted to dress differently, to wear clothes designed by Hedi Slimane," he said anxiously. "But these fashions, modeled by very, very slim boys—and not men my age—required me to lose at least 40 kg. It took me exactly thirteen months." The diet was created specially for Lagerfeld by Dr. Jean-Claude Houdret, which led to a book called The Karl Lagerfeld Diet, which he promoted on Larry King Live and other shows.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Karl Lagerfeld

• Karl Lagerfeld Official Website
• Karl Lagerfeld designer profile at Fashion Model Directory
• New Yorker: John Colapinto: In The Now. Where Karl Lagerfeld Lives Extensive profile (ca. 10,000 words)
• The Independent: Susannah Frankel: Being Karl Lagerfeld: What's it like being the most powerful man in fashion? 5 November 2011
• "Interactive timeline of couture houses and couturier biographies". Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1486_couture/explore.php. 
• Karl Lagerfeld’s twitter
• Karl Lagerfeld on Fashion Net

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