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More info: THREE AMERICAN PREMIERES AND TWO U.S. CHOREOGRAPHIC DEBUTS PERFORMED BY PRINCIPALS FROM AMERICAN BALLET THEATER, MARIINSKY BALLET, NEW YORK CITY BALLET AND STUTTGART BALLET HIGHLIGHT ARDANI 25 DANCE GALA, AUGUST 19 and 20 AT 8PM AT NEW YORK CITY CENTERInstead of the usual gala fare–bits of firecracker variations and pieces of ballet classics–Sergei Danilian’s “Ardani 25 Dance Gala” at New York City Center, August 19 and 20, is classic Danilian. The intrepid impresario, who has never side-stepped risk, will celebrate Ardani Artists’s quarter century of producing in the United States and abroad with a trio of U.S. premieres, two by young, unknown, but up–and–coming Russian choreographers, and one by American Ballet Theatre principal Marcelo Gomes. Challenging their performers stylistic and theatrical versatility, the three dramatically different ballets feature 16 principal dancers from the American Ballet Theatre, Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, and Stuttgart Ballet. Two of the program’s premieres, “Clay” by 27-year-old Valdimir Vanava and “Le Divertissement du Roi” by 24-year-old Maxim Petrov, were first spotted by Danilian at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg last March. The dances had been originally created at the Mariinsky’s Creative Workshop for Young Choreographers, a newly established program by the theater to encourage the development of young Russian ballet dance artists. Marcelo Gomes’s “Tristesse” had been part of Danilian’s Ardani 25 Gala at the London Coliseum last year, where it won the hearts of audiences and critics for its poetic presentation of the evolving relationship between four men. Vladimir Varnava’s contemporary ballet “Clay,” an energetic, emotional response to its jazz inflected score by Darius Milhaud, has a cast of six dancers performing a mix of solos, duets and ensemble pieces. Inspired by the surrealist French poet Paul Eluard’s “Barely Disfigured,” Marcelo Gomes’s “Tristesse,” which alternates between the joyous camaraderie, sadness, and loneliness of a friendship between four young guys, is set to a selection of sections of Chopin Etudes, primarily Opus 10. The program also features Maxim Petrov’s nod to 17th Century court dancing in “Le Divertissement du Roi.” With its dancers dressed in sumptuous velvet, satin and lace costumes reflecting the over-the-top royal fashion of the period, the ballet is set to Rameau, and stars Diana Vishneva as Louis XIV, marking the prima ballerina’s first performance in a male role. In addition to Vishneva, the evening is comprised of performances by Mariinsky dancers Denis Matvienko, Soslan Kulaev, Vasily Tkachenko, Denis Zainetdinov, Yevgeny Konovalov, Andrei Arsenev, Victoria Brileva, Zlata Yalinich, Yulia Kobzar, Maxim Zyuzin, Alexey Nedviga, Yury Smekalov; American Ballet Theatre’s Marcelo Gomes; New York City Ballet’s Joaquin de Luz, and Friedemann Vogel from the Stuttgart Ballet. A short documentary by award-winning filmmaker Charles Evans Jr. introduces the evenings with backstage and front-of-house glimpses of Ardani productions seen on stages throughout the world over the past five years. “Impresario: Dancer in New Dimensions,” a 500–page coffee table book of 750 black and white and color photographs chronicling performances produced by Ardani Artists over the years and backstage portraits of the participating artists, will be released in conjunction with the New York City Center performances. The international line-up of contributing photographers includes Patrick Demarchelier, Alice Blangero, Lucas Chilczuk, Fabrizio Ferri, Michael Khoury, Jason Kim, Alessio Migliardi and Nina Alovert. “Impresario” will be available at major bookstores in New York City, and online www.ardani.com/onlinestore.php TICKET INFORMATIONTickets range between $55 - $175 and can be purchased by calling 212-581-1212; at the City Center box office located at 131 West 55th Street or online at nycitycenter.org BACKGROUNDARDANI ARTISTS was founded in 1990 by Sergei and Gaiane Danilian to produce, present and tour major international performing arts companies and artists in the United States and abroad. Its innovative, award-winning work includes creating new productions of dance that showcase emerging and established choreographers commissioned to create ballets for an international roster of dancers from the world’s greatest companies (American Ballet Theatre, Mariinsky, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, among others). Created in collaboration with the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the productions, which toured both domestically in the U.S. and internationally include “Kings of the Dance,” “Tour de Force I and II,” “Reflections,” and “Diana Vishneva: Beauty in Motion,” which won three Golden Mask Awards, Russia’s most prestigious national theater award. (The awards were for Best Ballet Event of the season, Best Ballerina Award and the Critics’ Choice Award, marking the first time in 15 years that it had been given to a dance production.) In 2011 Ardani Artists, in collaboration with the Diana Vishneva Foundation, produced “Diana Vishneva: Dialogues” for which it received another two Golden Mask Awards (Best Ballet Production and Best Female Dancer). Its production of “Solo for Two” received five nominations for 2016 Golden Mask Awards. Last July, Ardani produced Ardani 25 Dance Gala at the London Coliseum, which brought its sold-out audience to its feet and British reviewers to cheers. Working with the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Ardani created the 2006 Mariinsky Festival which featured performances by the Mariinsky Opera, Ballet and Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, which took place at Segerstrom in Costa Mesa, CA over the course of three weeks in 2013. The company brought the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra for a return tour of major California venues last year. In addition to introducing American audiences to the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg in 1998, and presenting the 50-member company’s annual return engagements to theaters across the U.S., Ardani presented the American debuts of the Mikhailovsky Ballet, Polina Semionova & Friends, and most recently created a national tour for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. In July 2016, Sergei Danilian was selected as one of 150 of Russia’s most influential men by GQ Russia magazine. MARCELO GOMES Marcelo Gomes, a native of Brazil, began his dance studies at the age of five at the Helena Lobato and Dalal Aschcar ballet schools in Rio de Janeiro. Upon winning the Revelation Prize at the Festival of Dance in Joinville in 1993, he traveled to the United States to continue his training at The Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, as well as at the schools of the Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, and Cuba Ballet, where he studied under Alicia Alonso. Mr. Gomes was awarded second place at the National Society of Arts and Letters in 1994, and was the recipient of the Hope Prize at Lausanne in 1996, after which he spent a year at the school of the Paris Opera Ballet. Mr. Gomes joined American Ballet Theatre in 1997, where he rose quickly through the ranks, becoming a soloist in 2000 and principal dancer in 2002. He has performed in virtually every full-length classical ballet in the company’s repertoire, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Albrecht in Giselle, Prince Siegfried, Benno, and von Rothbart in Swan Lake, Solor in La Bayadere, Prince Desire in Sleeping Beauty, Franz in Coppelia, Espada and Basilio in Don Quixote, Prince Charming in Cinderella, Onegin and Prince Gremin in Onegin, Conrad, Ali the Slave, and Lankendem in Le Corsaire, the Cavalier in The Nutcracker, the Moor in Othello, Jeanne de Brienne and Abderakman in Raymonda, Lescaut and Des Grieux in Manon, and Pyotr in The Bright Stream. Mr. Gomes has performed leading roles in the works of George Balanchine, Mikhail Fokine, Anthony Tudor, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Sir Frederick Ashton, John Cranko, and Martha Graham, and has worked with, as well as created roles for, Twyla Tharp, William Forsythe, Paul Taylor, Mark Morris, Jiri Kylian, Lar Lubovitch, James Kudelka, Nacho Duato, Jorma Elo, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky. In addition to his touring with American Ballet Theatre, he has appeared at many international dance festivals, and has been a guest artist with the Kirov Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Houston Ballet, Teatro Colon, Teatro Municipal Do Rio de Janeiro, Universal Ballet, and New York City Ballet. He accompanied Alessandra Ferri on her farewell tour in Japan and Italy in 2008, and was the recipient of the prestigious Prix Benois de la Dance award in Moscow the same year. Mr. Gomes has recently begun a successful choreographic career, and has created pieces for dancers from American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, La Scala and Kings of the Dance. His ballet Apothéose, created for Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle, had its premiere on the opening night of American Ballet Theatre’s Metropolitan Opera House engagement in May 2013. His most recent work, Aftereffect, will be performed by ABT at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. this past spring. MAXIM PETROV Maxim Petrov, who was born in St. Petersburg, graduated from the Vaganova Russian Ballet Academy in 2012. He was immediately invited to join the Mariinsky Ballet, where he has danced works created by George Balanchine, Alexey Ratmansky, Hans Van Manen, Angelin Preljocaj, Sasha Waltz, Mikhail Fokine and others. In 2014 he made his choreographic debut with “Cinema” as part of A Creative Workshop for Young Choreographers at Mariinsky Theater. That year he also participated in a new project, Dance-Platform in Yekaterinbur (Russia), where he choreographed Quartet, set to music Gabriel Fauré. In 2015 he choreographed Ballet N2, set to music by Alexander Tsfasman and “Le Divertissment du Roi” set to music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, both of which which were presented at the Mariinsky Theatre, as well as dances in operas War and Peace (staged by Graham Vick, 2014) and Golden Cockerel (staged by Anna Matison, 2014). VALDIMIR VANAVA Vladimir Varnava was trained at the Khanty-Mansiysk branch of the Moscow State University of Culture and the Arts. In 2008 he was invited to join the Music Theatre of the Republic of Karelia, where he performed lead roles in classical and contemporary ballets. Since 2011 he has worked as a choreographer creating work that includes Pulcinella at the Music Theatre of the Republic of Karelia. Vladimir Varnava has lived and worked in St Petersburg since 2012. He has staged a series of choreographic miniatures for soloists at various St Petersburg theaters, including Beginning for Mariinsky principal Igor Kolb. In 2013, he created Plus, Minus for Bolshoi prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova. Varnava was awarded the prestigious Golden Mask Award for Dancing in 2010 and the Harlequin Award for Choreography in 2011. CHARLES EVANS JR. At age nine, Charles Evans Jr.’s first film work was clearing 16mm trim bins for his mother, documentarian Frances Evans, while she edited. Evans earned his undergraduate degree at UC-Berkley with a major in “Short Story Writing.” His thesis, a collection of short stories, won the University’s Eisner Prize For Literature. Evans went on to complete the production program at University of Southern California’s film school. He wrote, produced and directed his thesis, “Second Son”. Shot in 35mm, the film went on to win twelve awards including the Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand’s competition. Evans worked for two years at Touchstone Pictures as Director of Development for Randal Kleiser Productions, before founding Acappella Pictures in March, 1993. Evans produced Johnny Depp’s directorial debut, THE BRAVE, based on the novel by Gregory Mcdonald. Johnny and Marlon Brando starred. The production was an official selection for competition in the 1997 Cannes film festival. Evans’ enduring commitment to produce a film on the life of Howard Hughes resulted in THE AVIATOR (2004, BAFTA, Golden Globes). Evans’ directorial debut, ADDICTION INCORPORATED, a feature length documentary about the tobacco industry told through 30 years in the life of one scientist, won the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA’s) media award in 2014, and is being translated and distributed to countries around the world by the World Health Organization through their “Tobacco Free Initiative.” Evans’ photographs have been published internationally in Vanity Fair, Variety, In Style, Art in America, L’Espresso, Razor and Photo World, andhave been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Gescheidle Gallery in Chicago and the McGrath Gallery in Los Angeles. Casting: ARDANI 25 DANCE GALA August 19 at 8:00pm August 20 at 8:00pm New York City Center C L AY First performance: March 21, 2015, Mariinsky Theater as a part of the Project «A Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers» Music by Darius Milhaud Choreography by Vladimir Varnava Lighting Designer Igor Vints Costumes by Irina Varnava Performed by Victoria Brileva, Zlata Yalinich, Yulia Kobzar, Maxim Zyuzin, Alexey Nedviga, Yury Smekalov TRISTESSE First performance: December 5, 2014, Mikhailovsky Theater as a part of the Project «Kings of the Dance» Choreography by Marcelo Gomes Inspired by French poet Paul Éluard Music by Frederic Chopin (Etudes) Lighting Design by Antonio Marques Performed by Marcelo Gomes, Joaquin de Luz, Friedemann Vogel, Denis Matvienko Dimitri Dover (piano) LE DIVERTISSEMENT DU ROI First performance: March 21, 2015, Mariinsky Theater as a part of the Project «A Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers» Ballet in one act Choreography by Maxim Petrov Music by Jean-Philippe Rameau Bogdan Koloryok’s scene plan Costume Designer: Tatiana Noginova Lighting Designer: Konstantin Binkin French translation by Julia Monte l The designs make use of sketches by Jean Berain for productions at the Royal Academy of Music in Paris (1679-1697) and by Lodovico Burnacini for Antonio Cesti’s opera Il pomo d’oro (Vienna, 1667) Performed by The King; Diana Vishneva Master of Ceremonies; Soslan Kulaev Ensemble: Vasily Tkachenko, Denis Zainetdinov, Yevgeny Konovalov, Andrei Smekalov

A release: CARLOS LOPEZ NAMED BALLET MASTER WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Carlos Lopez, a former Soloist with American Ballet Theatre, has been named to the position of Ballet Master with the Company effective August 1, 2016. It was announced today by Kevin McKenzie, ABT Artistic Director. ​Carlos Lopez is currently a Ballet Master for the ABT Studio Company and a Company teacher at ABT. He began his professional career at the Victor Ullate Ballet in his native country, Spain and performed as a principal dancer for six years. Some of his repertory included leading roles in Don Quixote, Giselle, Theme and Variations, Allegro Brillante, Paquita, Les Sylphides and ballets by Maurice Bejart, Rudi Van Dantzig and Hans Van Manen. With this company he toured to Argentina, Belgium, Cuba, England, Germany, Italy and the United States. ​Lopez joined American Ballet Theatre in 2001 and was promoted to Soloist in 2003. His repertory with the Company included Iago in Othello, The Bronze Idol in La Bayadère, Mercutio and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, the Nutcracker-Prince in The Nutcracker, Birbanto in Le Corsaire, Puck in The Dream, Benno in Swan Lake, the second sailor in Fancy Free, Alain in La Fille mal gardée,Eros in Sylvia, the Lead Pontevedrian dancer in The Merry Widow, peasant pas de deux in Giselle, the Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty and The Joker in Jeu de Cartes. He also performed roles in Twyla Tharps In the Upper Room, Kurt Jooss The Green Table, Paul Taylors Company B and George Balanchines Theme and Variations. In 1996, Lopez won the Silver Medal at the Paris International Ballet Competition and in 2004, he was awarded the Les Etoiles de Ballet 2000 Prize in Cannes. ​Lopez is an American Ballet Theatre Certified Teacher in the ABT National Training Curriculum. He joined the faculty of the ABT Studio Company in 2013. He has taught on the faculty of the ABT Summer Intensives and participated in ABTs Royal Ballet School exchanges in London, Ibstage Barcelona and YoungArts in Miami. Lopez was a member of the jury at the 2015 Youth America Grand Prix.

Official release of promotions: JEFFREY CIRIO PROMOTED TO PRINCIPAL DANCER AND BLAINE HOVEN PROMOTED TO SOLOIST WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Jeffrey Cirio has been promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre and Blaine Hoven has been promoted to Soloist. The promotions, announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, become effective August 1, 2016. Jeffrey Cirio joined American Ballet Theatre as a Soloist in August 2015. Cirio began his ballet training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, under the direction of Marcia Dale Weary. He became a trainee with Boston Ballet School and joined Boston Ballet II for the 2007-2008 season. He continued his training at Orlando Ballet School and returned to Boston Ballet in 2009 as a member of the corps de ballet. He was promoted to second soloist in 2010, to soloist in 2011 and was appointed principal dancer with Boston Ballet in 2012. Cirio’s repertory with Boston Ballet included Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty, The Prince in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, the Bronze Idol and Solor in La Bayadère, Oberon and Puck in George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cavalier in The Nutcracker, Mercutio and Benvolio in John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, a Sailor in Fancy Free and roles in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Harlequinade, Ballo della Regina, Symphony in Three Movements, The Four Temperaments, Symphony in C, Tarantella and Diamonds and Rubies pas de deux in Jewels, Wayne McGregor’s Chroma and Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. Cirio originated the principal roles in Jorma Elo’s Awake Only and Elo Experience. For Boston Ballet, Cirio choreographed Trial in 2014 and fremd in 2015. As a Soloist with ABT, Cirio’s repertory includes His Hope in Marcelo Gomes’ AfterEffect, Chinese and Russian Dances in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Bluebird in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Eros in Ashton’s Sylvia and Colas in La Fille mal gardée, and leading roles in Paul Taylor’s Company B and Ratmansky’s Chamber Symphony and Serenade After Plato’s Symposium. He created a role in Mark Morris’ After You. Cirio won a gold medal at Youth America Grand Prix in 2005, a Princess Grace Fellowship and a gold medal at the Helskini International Ballet Competition in 2009. Blaine Hoven was born in Mobile, Alabama and began his training at Mobile Ballet under the direction of Winthrop Corey and Ann Duke. He trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts with Melissa Hayden, Warren Conover, Fanchon Cordell, Nina Danilova and Susan McKee McCollough. Hoven attended American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive for five years and received ABT’s National Training Scholarship from 1999 through 2002. Hoven joined American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 2003 and the main Company in 2004. His repertory with the Company includes the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, the Ballet Dancer in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Bright Stream, Bottom in Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, Benvolio in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Benno in Kevin McKenzie’s Swan Lake, Lensky in John Cranko’s Onegin, the Standard Bearer in Kurt Jooss’ The Green Table and roles in Airs, After You, Twyla Tharp’s Bach Partita, Baker’s Dozen, Brief Fling and In the Upper Room, Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas, Christopher Wheeldon’s Thirteen Diversions and Jiří Kylián’s Sinfonietta. He created the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker and roles in AfterEffect and Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once. Hoven was a recipient of the 2008 Princess Grace Award and the specially designated, Chris Hellman Dance Award. American Ballet Theatre’s Spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House continues through July 2, 2016. For tickets and information, please visit www.abt.org.

Official release about the Fall Fashion Gala: NEW YORK CITY BALLET ANNOUNCES DESIGNERS FOR ANNUAL FALL FASHION GALA EVENING TO FEATURE FOUR WORLD PREMIERE BALLETS WITH COLLABORATIONS BY Choreographer ANNABELLE LOPEZ OCHOA and Designer ROSIE ASSOULIN Choreographer LAUREN LOVETTE and Designer NARCISO RODRIGUEZ Choreographer JUSTIN PECK and Designer DRIES VAN NOTEN Choreographer PETER WALKER and Designer JASON WU New York City Ballet’s Fifth Annual Fall Fashion Gala Conceived by SARAH JESSICA PARKER and Co-Chaired by Parker and NORIKO “DAISY LIN” MAEDA Takes Place on Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at Lincoln Center On September 20, 2016, New York City Ballet will open its 2016-17 Season at Lincoln Center with the fifth anniversary of its annual Fall Fashion Gala, featuring an evening of world premiere ballets created by an internationally-acclaimed roster of choreographers and fashion designers. This year’s edition will include world premiere ballets by choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, featuring costumes designed by Rosie Assoulin; NYCB Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette, who will make her first-ever work for NYCB, featuring costumes designed by Narciso Rodriguez; NYCB Resident Choreographer and Soloist Justin Peck, featuring costumes designed by Dries Van Noten; and NYCB Corps de Ballet member Peter Walker, who will make his first-ever work for the Company, featuring costumes designed by Jason Wu. The lighting design for each of the world premiere ballets will be created by NYCB’s Resident Lighting Designer Mark Stanley. Conceived by NYCB Board Vice Chair Sarah Jessica Parker, and launched in 2012 with a gala celebration of the legendary designer Valentino, NYCB’s Fall Fashion Gala has since featured costumes designed by Thom Browne, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Peter Copping for Oscar de la Renta, Prabal Gurung, Carolina Herrera, Mary Katrantzou, Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony and Kenzo, Hanako Maeda of ADEAM, Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques’Almeida, Zuhair Murad, Olivier Theyskens, Iris Van Herpen, and Valentino, who have designed costumes for works by choreographers Robert Binet, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Justin Peck, Angelin Preljocaj, Liam Scarlett, Troy Schumacher, Myles Thatcher, and Christopher Wheeldon. Since the inception of the first Fall Fashion Gala in 2012, the annual event has raised more than $10 million for New York City Ballet. For the fifth anniversary of the event, Noriko “Daisy Lin” Maeda will join Parker as a co-chairman, and the evening will also feature a retrospective look at many of the designs that have been constructed over the past five years by the NYCB Costume Shop in collaboration with the designers and NYCB’s Director of Costumes Marc Happel. World Premiere by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Costumes Designed by Rosie Assoulin Internationally-acclaimed choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa will make her first-ever work for the Company, which will be set to a selection of scores written for cello by composers Luigi Boccherini, Edward Elgar, and Peteris Vasks. Of Colombian and Belgian descent, Lopez Ochoa studied at the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp, and was a soloist with Scapino Ballet Rotterdam. In 2003, she stopped dancing to focus solely on choreography and has made works for dance companies around the world including the Dutch National Ballet, Cuban National Ballet, West-Australian Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Joffrey Ballet. In 2012 she created the choreography for the Scottish Ballet’s award-winning production A Streetcar Named Desire. In the fall of 2007, Lopez Ochoa participated in a working session at the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of New York City Ballet. The costumes for Lopez Ochoa’s premiere will be created by designer Rosie Assoulin, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she first used her grandmother’s sewing machine at the age of 13 to experiment with pattern, texture, and style as a means of exploring her identity. Fifteen years later, and after honing her skills under the tutelage of her mentor, and future mother-in-law, jewelry designer Roxanne Assoulin, as well as two of her childhood idols -- Oscar de la Renta and Alber Elbaz -- Assoulin launched her eponymous label with a Resort 2014 debut collection and in 2015, won the CFDA’s Swarovski Award for Womenswear. At its core, her design aesthetic bridges the line between effortless elegance and the romantically fantastical – a blend of sculpted ease and bold lines. World Premiere by Lauren Lovette Costumes Designed by Narciso Rodriguez NYCB Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette will choreograph her first-ever work for a ballet company, which will be set to Robert Schumann’s Introduction and Concert Allegro, Op. 134. Born in California, Lovette began studying ballet at the age of 11 at the Cary Ballet Conservatory in Cary, North Carolina. She attended summer courses at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the summers of 2004 and 2005, and enrolled at SAB as a full-time student in 2006. She became a member of the NYCB corps de ballet in 2010, was promoted to Soloist in 2013, and became a Principal Dancer in 2015. In addition to her work as a dancer, Lovette began choreographing while a student at SAB where she participated in the School’s annual choreography workshops in 2008 and 2009. In the summer of 2012, Lovette also participated in a working session of the New York Choreographic Institute. The costumes for Lovette’s premiere will be designed by Narciso Rodriguez, one of America’s foremost fashion designers. Raised in Newark, New Jersey, Rodriguez received his formal education at Parsons The New School for Design, and worked at Anne Klein, under Donna Karan, before moving to Calvin Klein where he worked on the Women’s Collection. Rodriguez later held Design Director positions at TSE, Cerruti, and Loewe before establishing his own atelier in New York City in 2001. Rodriguez has won numerous design awards, and in 2002 and 2003 he was the first designer ever to win consecutive Womenswear Designer of the Year awards from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2005, Time Magazine honored the designer by naming him one of the “25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.” In addition to his career in fashion, Rodriguez has also created designs for films and the stage, including collaborations with choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon, Jonah Bokaer, and Stephen Petronio. World Premiere by Justin Peck Costumes Designed by Dries Van Noten For the 2016 Fall Fashion Gala NYCB Soloist and Resident Choreographer Justin Peck will create a pas de deux set to the second movement of Bohuslav Martinů’s Piano Quintet No. 2. Peck also used a score by Martinů for the ballet Paz de la Jolla, which he created for NYCB in 2013. Since creating his first work for NYCB in 2012, Peck has become one of the ballet world’s most in-demand choreographers with recent commissions from such companies as San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, and the Paris Opera Ballet. Born in Washington, DC, Peck spent his formative years in San Diego, California, where he studied at the California Ballet, prior to beginning his training at the School of American Ballet in 2003. He joined NYCB in 2007 and was promoted to Soloist in 2013. In 2009, Peck participated in his first working session at the New York Choreographic Institute, and in 2011 was awarded with the Institute’s first year-long choreographic residency. In 2012 he created In Creases, his first work for NYCB, and has since created a total of 10 ballets for the Company. In 2014, Peck was named NYCB’s Resident Choreographer, only the second person to hold that title in NYCB history. The costumes for Peck’s ballet will be designed by Dries Van Noten, the Belgian designer, who was born in Antwerp and is the third generation of a family of tailors. Part of the famed Antwerp Six, a group of fashion designers who graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1980s and went on to establish Antwerp as an important center for visionary fashion design, Van Noten launched his debut collection in 1986 to international acclaim. The same year he opened his first eponymous boutique in Antwerp’s gallery arcade, carrying both men’s and women’s collections, which were initially made from the same fabrics. Today the label, which includes womenswear and menswear collections, as well as accessories, is carried in free-standing boutiques and department stores around the world, and is headquartered in a 60,000 square foot warehouse space in Antwerp. In 2008 Van Noten was awarded the prestigious International Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America; and in 2014 the first major museum exhibition of his work, Dries Van Noten – Inspirations, opened at the Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris. World Premiere by Peter Walker Costumes Designed by Jason Wu NYCB Corps de Ballet member Peter Walker will make his first-ever work for NYCB, which will be set to an original score by Thomas Kikta, a classical guitarist and professor of music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Walker and Kikta have previously collaborated on a work for the School of American Ballet’s annual Winter Ball in 2015. Born in Fort Myers, Florida, Walker started his ballet training with former NYCB Principal Dancer Melinda Roy at the Gulfshore Ballet. Walker began his studies at the School of American Ballet during the 2006 summer course, enrolled as a full-time student in the winter of 2007, and joined the NYCB corps de ballet in 2012. Walker has also participated in working sessions at the New York Choreographic Institute in 2011 and 2012, and has created works for students at SAB for the School’s 2015 and 2016 Winter Balls. The costumes for Walker’s ballet will be designed by Jason Wu, who was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and at the age of nine moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he first began designing and sewing, using dolls as mannequins. Wu spent his senior year of high school in Paris and then moved to New York City to enroll at Parsons The New School for Design. Wu debuted his first Ready-to-Wear collection in New York City in 2007 and today more than 90% of the Jason Wu Collection is manufactured in the city’s Garment District. Wu has received many accolades, including being named one of the finalists in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in July 2008. In June 2010 he won the Swarovski Award for Womenswear at the CFDA Fashion Awards and in April 2011 he was nominated for the CFDA/Swarovski Award for Accessory Design. Wu was appointed Artistic Director of Hugo Boss womenswear Ready to Wear and Accessory collection in June 2013. More recently, Wu was honored with the Fashion Star Award at The Fashion Group International Night of Stars 2015, and won the 2016 International Designer of Year at the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards. Tickets Benefit-priced tickets for the gala evening, which include the 7 p.m. performance, a pre-performance reception, and black-tie supper ball following the performance, are available through the NYCB Special Events Office at 212-870-5585 and at nycballet.com/fallgala. Tickets for the performance only start at just $30 and will be available beginning August 7 at nycballet.com, by calling 212-496-0600, or at the David H. Koch Theater box office, located at West 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue. Major support for new work is provided by members of the New Combinations Fund. The Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation has generously provided support for new work by Lauren Lovette and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Major support for Lauren Lovette’s new ballet is also generously provided by Malo and John Harrison, with additional support from Karin Schwalb. Funding for Lauren Lovette’s new work is also provided by The Rudolf Nureyev Fund for Emerging Choreographers, established through a leadership grant from the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation, with additional grants from the Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation and the Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation, to support New York City Ballet’s commissioning of emerging choreographers. The Travelers Companies, Inc. is the Global Sponsor of New York City Ballet. Ruinart is the Official Champagne of New York City Ballet.

A release (scroll down for ballet offering): FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES SUMMER NEW RELEASES LINEUP Dear Colleagues: The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced its full lineup of new releases for the 2016 summer season, featuring films by Ira Sachs, Ivy Meeropol, and Werner Herzog; a documentary about Norman Lear; an exclusive run of the restoration of the late Andrzej Żuławski’s sci-fi epic On the Silver Globe; and more. Please see below for the complete list of films with run dates and synopses, as well as a sneak peek into the fall. We would also like to let you know that the Walter Reade Theater will be closed from July 8 – September 8, to undergo much-needed renovations in advance of its 25th anniversary this fall. (You can read more about it on our recently launched Kickstarter campaign.) If you have any questions, please let us know. Best, Rachel & Lisa Opening July 1 Private Property – New Restoration! Leslie Stevens, USA, 1960, 79m Warren Oates stars in this slow-burning, sweat- and sun-drenched psychosexual thriller—newly restored in stunning 4K by Cinelicious Pics and created from the original film elements rediscovered and preserved by UCLA after more than 50 years of being thought lost! This California noir centers on Duke and Boots (played with menacing, barely sublimated rage by Corey Allen and Oates), who set their sights on Ann Carlyle (Kate Manx), a sweetly alluring but neglected housewife who spends long, lonely days at home in her husband’s Beverly Hills villa. When the two men take up residence in an abandoned house that overlooks the Carlyles’ swimming pool, the setting becomes a stifling, and ultimately explosive, pressure cooker of sexual frustration, manipulation, and aggression. Directed on a shoestring budget by Leslie Stevens (three years before creating The Outer Limits), Private Property was denied MPAA approval under the Production Code upon its release, and even today, the film’s broodingly sinister depiction of sexuality gone awry is startling in its frank, unflinching intensity. The return of this classic, which had its world premiere at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April, also occasions our Oates retrospective, taking place July 1-7. A Cinelicious Pics release. Opening July 8 Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, USA, 2016, 91m Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware, and Detropia) reteam for this lovingly made documentary about Norman Lear—the legendary, influential mind behind 1970s sitcoms like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Maude. Touching on the many facets of his life, from growing up Jewish on the East Coast, to serving in World War II and returning to America to work in TV, to his eventual shift toward activism, Ewing and Grady reflect on Lear and the extraordinary impact he had on the national discourse during his television heyday. The film also captures the now 93-year-old subject as he reacts to his shows’ unforgettable moments, and features appearances by fans like George Clooney and Amy Poehler to discuss his legacy. Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You is a celebratory portrait of the fearless creative who addressed divisive issues with intelligence, sensitivity, and humor. A Music Box Films release. Norman Lear, Heidi Ewing, and Rachel Grady in person opening weekend! Indian Point Ivy Meeropol, USA/Japan, 2015, 94m Indian Point Energy Center, an aging nuclear power plant in Buchanan, New York, looms just 45 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. Despite millions of people living in close proximity to a potential nuclear disaster, the facility’s continued operation has the support of the plant’s operators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—but a large opposition in the surrounding community, including a vocal anti-nuclear group alarmed by Japan’s Fukushima accident, worry about a catastrophe occurring in the U.S. Capturing the debates for clean energy and the dangerous risks of government complacency, congressional-speechwriter-turned-filmmaker Ivy Meeropol presents a revelatory film about the uncertainties of our nuclear future and our insatiable demands for energy. A First Run Features release. Ivy Meeropol in person opening weekend! Opening July 22 Summertime / La Belle saison Catherine Corsini, France/Belgium, 2015, 105m French with English subtitles Acclaimed director Catherine Corsini has made melodramas that range in tone from the bleak and violent to the tender and emotionally warm. At first glance, her new film, a prizewinner at last year’s Locarno Film Festival, is one of her brightest and most bucolic. Soon after Delphine (Izïa Higelin) moves from her conservative parents’ farm near Limoges to Paris in 1971, she meets the older Carole (Cécile de France), a feminist organizer with whom she embarks on a passionate, mutually invigorating love affair. When a family sickness pulls Delphine back to the farm, Carole has to decide whether to follow her into hostile territory—and Summertime becomes something more complicated and fraught than its seductive, luminous visual palette initially suggests. A Strand Releasing release. Opening July 29 On the Silver Globe / Na srebrnym globie – New Restoration! Andrzej Żuławski, Poland, 1988, 166m Polish with English subtitles After a 16-year absence, Andrzej Żuławski returned to Polish cinema with On the Silver Globe, which proved to be the most ambitious and difficult project of his career. The largest Polish production of all time when shooting began in 1976, it was halted by the Ministry of Culture for two years due to its alleged subversiveness, before finally being reconstituted and completed after the fall of communism over a decade later. The resulting sci-fi epic follows a group of astronauts who, after crash-landing on the moon, forge a new society. As the first generation dies off, their children devise new rituals and mythologies to structure the emergent civilization, until a politician from Earth arrives and is hailed as the Messiah… An inexhaustibly inventive and absorbing film maudit that quite literally creates a new cinematic world, On the Silver Globe is perhaps the grandest expression of Żuławski’s visionary artistry. This very rarely screened film returns in a new digital restoration—personally approved by Żuławski and DP Andrzej Jaroszewicz—courtesy of the Polish Film Institute. A Film Studio KADR release. Opening August 5 Little Men Ira Sachs, USA/Greece, 2016, 85m English and Spanish with English subtitles Much like his previous film, Love Is Strange, director Ira Sachs’s Little Men captures the modern New York City landscape with a tender and intelligent relationship portrait, this time through the life-defining friendship of two teens caught in the middle of familial tumult. When his grandfather dies, 13-year-old Jake (Theo Taplitz) moves with his family from Manhattan back into his father’s old Brooklyn home, where he meets Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose single mother, Leonor (Paulina Garcia), runs a dress shop downstairs. Soon, Jake’s parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) ask Leonor to sign another, more expensive lease for the store, which kindles a feud between the adults. The friendship struck by Jake and Tony forms the heart of the film, with Sachs observing this connection with humanism and insight to ultimately craft a timely, sophisticated story of displacement and class. A Magnolia Pictures release. Neither Heaven Nor Earth / Ni le ciel ni la terre Clément Cogitore, France/Belgium, 2015, 100m French and Persian with English subtitles The ingenious conceit of Neither Heaven Nor Earth, a critical success at Cannes (where it was titled The Wakhan Front), is to transform the Afghan battlefield—dust and boredom and jolts of explosive violence—into the backdrop for a metaphysical thriller. Jérémie Renier stars as a French army commander who begins to lose the loyalty of his company, as well as his sanity, when soldiers start mysteriously disappearing one by one. Rarely is the madness of war conveyed on screen with such simmering tension and existential fear. Rarely, too, is the ignorance and mistrust between cultures—are the shepherd villagers innocent civilians or Taliban spies?—limned with such poetic insight. A 2016 New Directors/New Films selection. A Film Movement Release. Clément Cogitore in person opening weekend! Opening August 19 Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World Werner Herzog, USA, 2016, 98m From the brilliant mind of Werner Herzog comes a new exploratory documentary, which looks at the intricacies and unsettling omnipotence of technology—and society’s rapidly growing dependence on it. Structured in chapters that cover the birth of the Internet, self-driving cars, athlete-robots, and beyond, the film shows us captivating and bizarre stories from eclectic people, whose experiences with technology at once charm and sober. The bigger picture of our brave new world looms behind Herzog’s authorial voice as he threads together these stories that imagine the revolutionary, otherworldly, and often dangerous nature of our wired lives. But while the future of humanity’s relationship to technology remains up in the air, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World wrestles with the profound and intangible questions that all of us should be asking. A Magnolia Pictures release. Werner Herzog in person opening weekend! Opening August 26 Fatima Philippe Faucon, France, 2015, 79m French and Arabic with English subtitles Middle-aged single mother Fatima (Soria Zeroual) lives with her two teenage daughters in France and works cleaning jobs to pay their way through school. Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who emigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language, Faucon’s eighth feature—winner of the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best Film and three César Awards for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Most Promising Actress—is a patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she’s wary. Despite the display of everyday racism, both veiled and overt; internal domestic disputes; and external gestures of inhospitality, Fatima offers an uplifting experience and one of recent French cinema’s most trenchant and moving portraits of immigrant experience. A Kino Lorber release. Opening September 9 Author: The JT LeRoy Story Jeff Feuerzeig, USA, 2016, 110m Author: The JT LeRoy Story unravels the notorious, utterly fascinating tale of JT LeRoy, the literary sensation who turned out to be a hoax. “JT Leroy,” revealed in a 2005 exposé as the invented male persona of Laura Albert, a punk rocker and freelance writer from Brooklyn, published numerous, tough-prose memoirs about a life of prostitution and drug addiction; meanwhile, telephonic relationships with figures like Tom Waits, Courtney Love, and Gus Van Sant contributed to the author’s global allure and mystery. Director Jeff Feuerzeig, who profiled another troubled artist in The Devil and Daniel Johnston, lets Albert recount the infamous ruse in her own words, alongside reenactments, animated sequences, home movie footage, and recorded phone conversations. The result is a gripping story about creative desire, authorship, and deception. An Amazon Studios/Magnolia Pictures release. To Sleep with Anger – New Restoration! Charles Burnett, USA, 1990, 102m Charles Burnett became known to world cinema when his 1978 UCLA thesis film, Killer of Sheep, won the Critics’ Prize at the 1981 Berlin Film Festival. His legendary reputation among cinephiles never quite segued into mainstream recognition, even though his 1990 drama To Sleep with Anger—novelistic in its narrative density and rich characterization—is one of the finest films about the black experience in modern America. Danny Glover (also the film’s executive producer) stars as Harry Mention, a mysterious drifter from the South who visits an old acquaintance (Paul Butler), now leading a middle-class life with his family in South Central Los Angeles. Though imbued with charm and traditional manners, Harry has a knack for mischief that creates powerful rifts throughout the family. Burnett’s overlooked masterpiece connects the past to the present in emotionally resonant ways, making this film as imaginative and insightful as his debut feature. To Sleep with Anger returns to the Film Society in a beautiful digital restoration. A Sony Pictures release. A sneak peek into the fall: Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales – New Restorations! September 16-29 In 1950, leading French publisher Gallimard rejected a manuscript of a short-story collection called Moral Tales, submitted by a 30-year-old fiction writer. More than a decade later, the writer in question—by then an influential critic and a late-flowering movie director—resolved to adapt the stories for the screen, each inspired by F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, in which a man, committed to one woman, is tempted by another. The resulting series of works, which took a decade to complete, established Eric Rohmer’s international reputation as a filmmaker. Thrillingly intelligent portraits of self-centered, articulate, often foolish men and the women they belittle, idolize, long for, and stalk, staged with offhand visual imagination and full of electrifying high-stakes verbal showdowns, the six Moral Tales represented an entirely new way of handling male-female relationships on screen. Occasioned by our revivals of La Collectionneuse and Chloe in the Afternoon, the Film Society is pleased to present all six Moral Tales—newly restored—in September! Courtesy Janus Films and Films du Losange. Dancer Steven Cantor, UK, 2016, 82m English, Russian, and Ukrainian with English subtitles Opens September 16 Ukrainian-born “bad boy of ballet” Sergei Polunin became the Royal Ballet’s youngest ever principal dancer at age 19. But two years later—at the height of his success—he walked away from it all, resolving to give up dance entirely. Steven Cantor’s Dancer tracks the life of this iconoclastic virtuoso, from his prodigal beginnings in the Ukraine to his awe-inspiring performances in the U.K., Russia, and eventually the U.S., where he went viral after David LaChapelle filmed him dancing to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church.” Yet beyond celebrating the raw talent and wild ambition of Polunin, whose sights are now set on Hollywood, Dancer considers how wealth and success may not be enough when it comes to finding personal and professional identity. A Sundance Selects release. The 54th New York Film Festival September 30 – October 16 Press accreditation for the 54th New York Film Festival will open soon. In the meantime, check out the exclusive poster here, designed by NYFF alum Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

From the company: ANDREW F. BARTH ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF BOARD OF GOVERNING TRUSTEES FOR AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE BRIAN J. HEIDTKE ELECTED TO BOARD PRESIDENT The Board of Governing Trustees of American Ballet Theatre has elected Andrew F. Barth Chairman and Brian J. Heidtke President. The elections, which become effective immediately, were announced today by Kara Medoff Barnett, ABT Executive Director. Barth succeeds Donald Kramer who has held the position as Chairman since 2011. Heidtke succeeds Sharon Patrick who has served as President since 2009. Andrew Barth is chairman of Capital Guardian Trust Company in Los Angeles and a director of Capital Group International, Inc., where he maintains portfolio management responsibilities in credit fixed-income accounts. He completed his MBA at Columbia University Graduate School of Business and graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University (Phi Beta Kappa). In addition to serving on the Board of Governing Trustees for American Ballet Theatre, Barth serves on the boards of Beat the Streets in Los Angeles, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, the California Science Center Foundation, the United States Olympic and Para-Olympic Foundation, Columbia University, the Huntington Museum, Library and Gardens, the American Friends of the Louvre and the Board of Overseers for the Columbia Business School. Barth joined American Ballet Theatre’s Board of Governing Trustees in 2001 and has served as the Board’s Vice Chairman since 2009. “It is a great honor to accept the Chairman’s role from Don Kramer,” said Barth. “I hope to live up to Don’s legacy and that of our other distinguished chairs. The artistic excellence and outstanding creativity embodied within ABT gives us much to look forward to in the future. “ Brian J. Heidtke is the retired Vice President of Finance and Corporate Treasurer for Colgate­Palmolive Company, where he was responsible for financing policy and all domestic and international treasury matters. He was a director and former chairman of the National Association of Corporate Treasurers and presently serves on the board of the Williams Capital Management Trust. Heidtke is active on the boards and executive committees of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Archaeological Institute of America. He serves as a trustee for a number of inner­city education and literacy organizations in New York and New Jersey. Heidtke is a native of St. Paul and graduated from the University of Minnesota, where he also studied at the Graduate School of Business Administration. He is also the President of The Heidtke Foundation in Wyckoff, New Jersey. A member of American Ballet Theatre’s Board of Governing Trustees since 2000, Heidtke previously served as Board Vice President and Treasurer. He will continue his role as Co-Chair of the Board’s Education Committee. "As an ABT trustee, I've been especially gratified by the transformation of the Company's administrative management team to match the artistic excellence long evident under Kevin McKenzie, and by the establishment of ABT's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School,” said Heidtke. “In partnership with Andy Barth and Kara Barnett, I look forward to sustaining the leadership of America's National Ballet Company long provided by Sharon Patrick.” “The future of American Ballet Theatre is in the best of hands with the appointments of Andrew Barth and Brian Heidtke, as Chairman and President, respectively,” said Kara Medoff Barnett. “Both leaders have shown a true commitment to the ongoing success of this institution. I look forward to collaborating with them closely.” Former Chairman Donald Kramer has been named Chairman Emeritus of American Ballet Theatre’s Board of Governing Trustees and will continue to serve as Chair of the Board’s audit and finance committees. Sharon Patrick becomes a Vice Chair of the Board and will continue in her role as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee.

Casting release: CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR FINAL TWO WEEKS OF AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING SEASON AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE GUEST ARTIST ALESSANDRA FERRI TO DANCE THE ROLE OF JULIET IN ROMEO AND JULIET ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 23 STELLA ABRERA TO CELEBRATE 20TH ANNIVERSARY WITH ABT ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 30 Casting for the seventh and eighth weeks of American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. The season’s first performance of Romeo and Juliet on Monday, June 20 will be dedicated to former ABT Principal Dancer Johan Renvall and will be led by Hee Seo (Juliet), Cory Stearns (Romeo) and Craig Salstein (Mercutio). On Wednesday, June 22, Isabella Boylston will debut in the role of Juliet at the matinee performance, and Jeffrey Cirio will debut in the role of Mercutio at the evening performance. On Thursday evening, June 23, Guest Artist and former ABT Principal Dancer Alessandra Ferri will return to the role of Juliet for the first time since her retirement from the Company in 2007, opposite Herman Cornejo as Romeo. Daniil Simkin will debut in the role of Romeo at the Saturday matinee performance on June 25. Set to the score by Sergei Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet features scenery and costumes by Nicholas Georgiadis and lighting by Thomas Skelton. Romeo and Juliet received its World Premiere by The Royal Ballet in London on February 9, 1965 and was given its ABT Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 22, 1985 with Leslie Browne and Robert La Fosse in the leading roles. The final week of ABT’s 2016 Spring Season will feature eight performances of The Sleeping Beauty, June 27 – July 2. Monday evening’s performance, June 27, will be led by Isabella Boylston as Princess Aurora, Joseph Gorak as Prince Désiré, Veronika Part as the Lilac Fairy, Marcelo Gomes as Carabosse, Christine Shevchenko as Diamond Fairy, Daniil Simkin as the Bluebird and Cassandra Trenary as Princess Florine. Devon Teuscher and Jeffrey Cirio will make their New York debuts in the roles of Diamond Fairy and the Bluebird, respectively, on Tuesday, June 28. Cassandra Trenary will make her New York debut in the role of Aurora at the Wednesday matinee performance on June 29. Alexandre Hammoudi and Luciana Paris will perform the roles of Prince Désiré and Diamond Fairy, respectively, for the first time in New York on Wednesday evening, June 29. Stella Abrera will celebrate her 20th Anniversary with the Company on Thursday evening, June 30 debuting in the role of Princess Aurora. Skylar Brandt will make her New York debut in the role of Princess Florine on Thursday evening, June 30. Set to the classic score by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, The Sleeping Beauty has choreography by Marius Petipa and staging and additional choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, with assistance by Tatiana Ratmansky. The production features scenery and costumes by Tony Award®-winning designer Richard Hudson. Hudson’s designs are based on the historic work of Léon Bakst, who created a seminal version of The Sleeping Beauty for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1921. The Sleeping Beauty received its World Premiere on March 3, 2015 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, performed by Diana Vishneva (Princess Aurora) and Marcelo Gomes (Prince Désiré). American Airlines is the Official Airline of American Ballet Theatre. 
Northern Trust is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. 
ABT is supported, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season, beginning at $20, are available online, at the Met box office or by phone at 212-362-6000. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City. For more information, visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org. Complete casting follows. SEVENTH WEEKMon. Eve., June 20, 7:30 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – Seo, Stearns, Salstein Tues. Eve., June 21, 7:30 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – Vishneva, Gomes, Scott Wed. Mat., June 22, 2 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – +Boylston, Whiteside, Simkin Wed. Eve., June 22, 7:30 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – Murphy, Hammoudi, +Cirio Thurs. Eve., June 23, 7:30 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET - *Ferri, Cornejo, Salstein Fri. Eve., June 24, 7:30 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – Seo, Bolle, Cirio Sat. Mat., June 25, 2 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET – Copeland, +Simkin, Salstein Sat. Eve., June 25, 8 P.M. ROMEO AND JULIET - Vishneva, Gomes, Scott EIGHTH WEEKMon. Eve., June 27, 7:30 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Boylston, Gorak, Part, Gomes, Shevchenko, Simkin, Trenary Tues. Eve., June 28, 7:30 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Murphy, Stearns, Abrera, Salstein, ++Teuscher, ++Cirio, Copeland Wed. Mat., June 29, 2 P.M.. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – ++Trenary, Whiteside, Teuscher, Raffa, Brandt, Zhang, Lane Wed. Eve., June 29, 7:30 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Seo, ++Hammoudi, Shevchenko, Salstein, ++Paris, Gorak, Boylston Thurs. Eve., June 30, 7:30 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – +Abrera, Gomes, Part, Raffa, Shevchenko, Shayer, ++Brandt Fri. Eve., July 1, 7:30 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Lane, Cornejo, Teuscher, Salstein, Paris, Cirio, Copeland Sat. Mat., July 2, 2 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Boylston, Gorak, Part, Gomes, Brandt, Simkin, Trenary Sat. Eve., July 2, 8 P.M. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY – Seo, Hammoudi, Shevchenko, Raffa, Teuscher, Hoven, Abrera *Guest Artist +Editors please note first time in a role: Wed. Mat., 6/22 – Boylston (Juliet) in Romeo and Juliet Wed. Eve., 6/22 – Cirio (Mercutio) in Romeo and Juliet Sat., Mat., 6/25 – Simkin (Romeo) in Romeo and Juliet Thurs, 6/30 – Abrera (Aurora) in The Sleeping Beauty ++Editors please note first time in a role in New York: Tues., 6/28 – Teuscher (Diamond Fairy) and Cirio (Bluebird) in The Sleeping Beauty Wed. Mat., 6/29 –Trenary (Aurora) in The Sleeping Beauty Wed. Eve., 6/29 – Hammoudi (Prince Désiré) and Paris (Diamond Fairy) in The Sleeping Beauty Thurs. 6/30 – Brandt (Princess Florine) in The Sleeping Beauty

So sad. Giannina was in our California office and would give us reviews of ABT, Mariinsky and others from the west coast. She'd also always make a trip to Europe, DC or NY. In one of those trips I remember meeting her at a coffee shop near Lincoln Center and just talking ballet before we both made a show. She was a great Welcome Lady here, too, always with the right thing to say to make a newbe feel at home. I will miss her.

A release: Sergei Danilian, the intrepid impresario who introduced Boris Eifman to American audiences in 1998 and continues to bring the Eifman Ballet to American shores annually, and who also created two international hits, “Kings of the Dance” and “Beauty in Motion,” will present a 25th anniversary celebration, “Ardani 25 Dance Gala,” at City Center, August 19 & 20 at 8pm. Danilian and his wife Gaiane Danilian founded the ever-adventurous Ardani Artists in 1990. Instead of the usual gala fare of bits of fire cracker variations and pieces of ballet classics, the evenings are classic Danilian: taking a risk with the new by presenting a trio of US premieres performed by principal dancers from the American Ballet Theatre, Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet. The program features Vladimir Varnava’s contemporary ballet “Clay,” performed to music by Darius Milhaud; Marcelo Gomes’s “Tristesse,” whose witty mix of the joy and sadness of a friendship between four guys won rave reviews from the London critics. The program also features Maxim Petrov’s nod to 17th Century court dancing in “Le Divertissement du Roi.” The ballet is set to Rameau and stars Diana Vishneva as Louis XIV, marking the prima ballerina’s first performance in a male role. The program is the same each evening. CLAYFirst performance: March 21, 2015, Mariinsky Theater as a part of the Project «A Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers» Music by Darius Milhaud Choreography by Vladimir Varnava Lighting Designer Igor Vints Costumes by Irina Varnava Performed by Victoria Brileva, Zlata Yalinich, Yulia Kobzar, Maxim Zyuzin, Alexey Nedviga, Yury Smekalov TRISTESSEFirst performance: December 5, 2014, Mikhailovsky Theater as a part of the Project «Kings of the Dance» Choreography by Marcelo Gomes Inspired by French poet Paul Éluard Music by Frederic Chopin (Etudes) Lighting Design by Antonio Marques Performed by Marcelo Gomes, Joaquin de Luz, Friedemann Vogel, Denis Matvienko Dimitri Dover (piano) LE DIVERTISSEMENT DU ROIFirst performance: March 21, 2015, Mariinsky Theater as a part of the Project «A Creative Workshop of Young Choreographers» Ballet in one act Choreography by Maxim Petrov Music by Jean-Philippe Rameau Bogdan Koloryok’s scene plan Costume Designer: Tatiana Noginova Lighting Designer: Konstantin Binkin French translation by Julia Montel The designs make use of sketches by Jean Berain for productions at the Royal Academy of Music in Paris (1679-1697) and by Lodovico Burnacini for Antonio Cesti’s opera Il pomo d’oro (Vienna, 1667) Performed by The King; Diana Vishneva Master of Ceremonies; Soslan Kulaev Ensemble: Vasily Tkachenko, Denis Zainetdinov, Yevgeny Konovalov, Alexander Saveliev

A release: BOSTON BALLET ANNOUNCES 2016–2017 SEASON PROMOTIONS ANAÏS CHALENDARD AND SEO HYE HAN PROMOTED TO PRINCIPAL JUNXIONG ZHAO PROMOTED TO SOLOIST CORINA GILL PROMOTED TO SECOND SOLOIST SAMIVEL EVANS AND DESEAN TABER PROMOTED TO CORPS DE BALLET FROM BOSTON BALLET II May 26, 2016 (BOSTON, MA)—Mikko Nissinen, Artistic Director of Boston Ballet, has announced six promotions from within the company for the 2016–2017 season. Soloists Anaïs Chalendard and Seo Hye Han have been promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer, Second Soloist Junxiong Zhao to Soloist, and Corina Gill to Second Soloist. Samivel Evans and Desean Taber, two dancers from Boston Ballet II—Boston Ballet’s second company—will join the Company as Corps de Ballet dancers. All promotions are effective August 15, 2016. The full 2016–2017 roster of dancers will be announced at a later date. Anaïs Chalendard of Renaison, France, trained in the Ecole Nationale de danse de Marseille with Dominique Khalfouni and Roland Petit, and also studied throughout Germany with a variety of artistic directors and teachers including Youri Vamos, Vladimir Malakhov, and Birgit Keil. Prior to joining Boston Ballet, Chalendard was a first soloist with English National Ballet. She has also appeared as Guest Artist with companies around the globe. In 2009, Chalendard received the "Emerging Dancer Award" after dancing Nikiya's Death from La Bayadère. She has also been listed in the “100 Best Dancers in the World” by Dance Europe Magazine. Chalendard joined Boston Ballet in 2013 as Second Soloist, and was promoted to Soloist in 2014. She will return next season as Principal Dancer. Seo Hye Han of Seoul, Korea, graduated from the Korea National University of Arts in 2009. Upon graduation, she joined Universal Ballet Company as a soloist. She has received honors and awards at an array of international competitions including a silver medal in 2004 at Bulgaria's Varna International Ballet Competition; a scholarship to Vaganova Ballet Academy in the 2005 Prix de Lausanne; a silver medal in the 2008 Varna International Ballet Competition; a silver medal in the 2008 Seoul International Dance Competition; the Joffrey Prize in the 2010 USA International Ballet Competition; and the Gold Medal in the 2012 Boston International Ballet Competition. Han joined Boston Ballet in 2012; she was promoted to Second Soloist in 2013 and Soloist in 2014. She will be a Principal Dancer upon her return next season. Junxiong Zhao of Chongqing, China, began his training at age 11 with Shanghai East Ballet School. In 2010, he began training with Kee Juan Han and Carlos Vacarcel at the Washington Ballet School, where he later joined the Washington Ballet’s studio company. In 2012, Zhao joined Ballet Arizona. He has received many national and international accolades including Senior Silver Medal at World Ballet Competition 2012; Senior Gold Medal at the 2012 Cape Town International Ballet Competition in classical and contemporary categories; Senior Gold Medal in the Classical Category at the 2011 Youth American Grand Prix Semifinals, Torrington, Connecticut; Junior Bronze Medal at the 2009 Helsinki International Ballet Competition in Helsinki, Finland; and Top 12 at the 2009 Youth American Grand Prix Finals, New York, among others. Zhao joined Boston Ballet in 2014 as Second Soloist. For the 2016–2017 season, he will be a Soloist with the Company. Corina Gill of San Diego, California, began her dance training in her hometown with Sylvia Palmer and Ahita Ardalan. Gill completed her studies under scholarship at the University of California, Irvine, where she graduated with a BA in Dance. Gill went on to perform as a company dancer with Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech, San Diego Ballet, Ballet Pacifica, State Street Ballet, and Molly Lynch's National Choreographer's Initiative. In 2006, Gill became an inaugural member of the Los Angeles Ballet and in 2009, she joined Boston Ballet. Gill has been featured in Dance Magazine’s “On the Rise” column and Pointe Magazine’s “Dance Spotlight.” Most recently, Gill completed her Master's Certificate in Nonprofit Management under Boston Ballet's partnership with Northeastern University. Gill will return next season as Second Soloist. Samivel Evans of Santa Fe, New Mexico, began his ballet training at Aspen Santa Fe Ballet School, under Jefferson Baum. He attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he studied under the direction of Ethan Stiefel. Upon graduation as a Ballet Major, Evans joined the Trainee Program at Boston Ballet School. He joined Boston Ballet II in 2014 and will join the Corps de Ballet for the 2016–2017 season. Desean Taber of Salisbury, Connecticut, began his training at age 12 at the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts. He studied at Miami City Ballet School on full scholarship in 2011, and joined Boston Ballet School as a Trainee in 2012. Taber has attended summer programs at the School of American Ballet, The Harid Conservatory, San Francisco Ballet School, and Boston Ballet's Summer Dance Program. Taber was selected for the exchange program between Boston Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, and was invited to the Banff Professional Dance Program in Banff, Canada. After two years training at Boston Ballet School, Taber joined Boston Ballet II in 2014. He is promoted to the Corps de Ballet for the upcoming season.

From the company: CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR FIFTH AND SIXTH WEEKS OF AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING SEASON AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE AMERICAN PREMIERE OF THE GOLDEN COCKEREL Casting for the fifth and sixth weeks of American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. The American Premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Golden Cockerel will open the fifth week of performances on Monday evening, June 6, with Veronika Part (Queen of Shemakhan), Skylar Brandt (Golden Cockerel) and Gary Chryst (Tsar Dodon) leading the first cast. On Tuesday evening, June 7, Stella Abrera, Cassandra Trenary and Victor Barbee will debut in the roles of Queen of Shemakhan, Golden Cockerel and Tsar Dodon, respectively. The Wednesday matinee cast on June 8 will feature Hee Seo (Queen of Shemakhan), Sarah Lane (Golden Cockerel) and Roman Zhurbin (Tsar Dodon) performing the roles for the first time, and Wednesday evening’s performance will feature debuts by Misty Copeland (Queen of Shemakhan), Maria Kochetkova (Golden Cockerel) and Alexei Agoudine (Tsar Dodon). Set to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov with sets and costumes by Richard Hudson, Ratmansky’s The Golden Cockerel is inspired by Michel Fokine’s original production. Anne Holm-Jensen Peyk staged the ballet for ABT. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s folktale, The Golden Cockerel was first presented on May 21, 1914 at the Théâtre Nationale de l’Opera, Paris, with choreography by Michel Fokine and scenery and costumes by Natalia Goncharova. Ratmansky’s choreography for The Golden Cockerel received its World Premiere by the Royal Danish Ballet on September 29, 2012 at the Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark. The sixth week will feature eight performances of Swan Lake, June 13-16. The performance on Monday evening, June 13 will be led by Gillian Murphy as Odette/Odile, Marcelo Gomes as Prince Siegfried and Cory Stearns as von Rothbart. Swan Lake is set to the score by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky and features scenery and costumes by Zack Brown and lighting by Duane Schuler. This production of Swan Lake premiered on March 24, 2000 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. with Julie Kent (Odette-Odile), Angel Corella (Prince Siegfried) and Marcelo Gomes (von Rothbart). American Airlines is the Official Airline of American Ballet Theatre. 
Northern Trust is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. 
ABT is supported, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season, beginning at $20, are available online, at the Met box office or by phone at 212-362-6000. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City. For more information, visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org. Complete casting follows. The American Premiere of The Golden Cockerel has been generously underwritten by an anonymous donor. Additional leadership support provided by The Ted and Mary Jo Shen Charitable Gift Fund and Linda Allard. This production has been generously supported through an endowed gift from The Toni and Martin Sosnoff New Works Fund. Additional support provided by Michele and Steve Pesner. Swan Lake has been generously underwritten by R. Chemers Neustein. Additional support for the 2016 performances of Swan Lake generously provided by Seldon Young and The Swan Princess. Costumes for Swan Lake are generously sponsored by the Ellen Everett Kimiatek Costume Preservation Trust.

A casting release: CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR THIRD AND FOURTH WEEKS OF AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING SEASON AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE ISABELLA BOYLSTON AND JEFFREY CIRIO TO LEAD REVIVAL PREMIERE OF LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE ON TUESDAY, MAY 24 GILLIAN MURPHY TO CELEBRATE 20TH ANNIVERSARY WITH ABT ON SATURDAY EVENING, MAY 28 Casting for the third and fourth weeks of American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. The third week will begin on Monday, May 23 with the season’s final performance of Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy, set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich with scenery by George Tsypin, costumes by Keso Dekker and lighting by Jennifer Tipton. Symphony #9 received its World Premiere at New York City Center on October 18, 2012, led by Polina Semionova, Marcelo Gomes, Herman Cornejo, Simone Messmer and Craig Salstein. Chamber Symphony and Piano Concerto #1 both received their World Premieres at the Metropolitan Opera House on May 31, 2013, with Chamber Symphony danced by David Hallberg, Isabella Boylston, Paloma Herrera and Julie Kent, and Piano Concerto #1 led by Diana Vishneva, Cory Stearns, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev. American Ballet Theatre’s Revival Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée is scheduled for Tuesday, May 24, led by Isabella Boylston as Lise, Jeffrey Cirio as Colas, Roman Zhurbin as the Widow Simone and Craig Salstein as Alain. The matinee on Wednesday, May 25 will feature Gillian Murphy as Lise and debuts by Cory Stearns (Colas), Marcelo Gomes (Widow Simone) and Arron Scott (Alain). Misty Copeland and Herman Cornejo will debut as Lise and Colas, respectively, at the evening performance on Wednesday, May 25, and Stella Abrera and James Whiteside will dance these roles for the first time on Thursday evening, May 26. The performance on Saturday evening, May 28 will honor Gillian Murphy as she celebrates her 20th Anniversary with the Company. Staged for ABT by Malin Thoors, La Fille mal gardée is set to music by Ferdinand Hérold, freely adapted and arranged by John Lanchbery from the 1828 version, and features designs by Osbert Lancaster, a scenario by Jean Dauberval and lighting by Brad Fields. La Fille mal gardée received its World Premiere by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on January 28, 1960, danced by Nadia Nerina (Lise), David Blair (Colas), Alexander Grant (Alain) and Stanley Holden (Widow Simone). The ballet received its United States Premiere by The Royal Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on September 14, 1960, danced by the same cast. La Fille mal gardée received its American Ballet Theatre Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on May 31, 2002, danced by Ashley Tuttle (Lise) and Ethan Stiefel (Colas). The season’s first performance of Le Corsaire on Tuesday, May 31 will be led by Maria Kochetkova (Medora), Herman Cornejo (Conrad), Sarah Lane (Gulnare), Daniil Simkin (Lankendem), Jeffrey Cirio (Ali, the Slave) and Craig Salstein (Birbanto). The matinee on Wednesday, June 1 will include debuts by Devon Teuscher as Gulnare, Joo Won Ahn as Lankendem and Gabe Stone Shayer as Birbanto. Exchange Artist Mathias Heymann, an étoile with the Paris Opera Ballet, will make his ABT debut on Wednesday evening, June 1 in the role of Conrad. Gabe Stone Shayer will dance the role of Lankendem for the first time at the same performance. On Friday, June 3 the performance will include debuts by Hee Seo as Medora, James Whiteside as Conrad and Jeffrey Cirio as Lankendem. Based on the Lord Byron poem “The Corsair” (1814), the ballet features choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev after Marius Petipa, and staging by Anna-Marie Holmes after Petipa and Sergeyev, with music by Adolphe Adam, Cesare Pugni, Léo Delibes, Riccardo Drigo and Prince Oldenbourg. Scenery and costumes are by Irina Tibilova, with additional costume designs by Robert Perdziola and lighting by Mary Jo Dondlinger. Le Corsaire received its Company Premiere by American Ballet Theatre on June 19, 1998 with Nina Ananiashvili (Medora), Giuseppe Picone (Conrad), Ashley Tutttle (Gulnare), Vladimir Malakhov (Lankendem), Jose Manuel Carreño (Ali, the slave) and Angel Corella (Birbanto). American Airlines is the Official Airline of American Ballet Theatre. 
Northern Trust is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. 
ABT is supported, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season, beginning at $20, are available online, at the Met box office or by phone at 212-362-6000. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City. For more information, visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org. Complete casting follows. La Fille mal gardée has been generously supported through an endowed gift from The Toni and Martin Sosnoff New Works Fund. American Ballet Theatre's performances of Le Corsaire are generously supported through an endowed gift from Anka K. Palitz, in memory of Clarence Y. Palitz, Jr. Additional support provided through an endowed gift from Irene and Fred Shen.

I thought so, too. Mearns is often very frank about what she thinks of her own performances. She's mentioned before not being completely comfortable with that ballet. It's a tough one for the type of ballerina Mearns is. I remember Farrell in that role too. It was never her cup of tea either (which means, by the way she danced it!).

From the company: BOSTON BALLET AND THE ROYAL BALLET ANNOUNCE FIRST CO-PRODUCTION WITH WAYNE MCGREGOR’S OBSIDIAN TEAR WORLD PREMIERE IN LONDON MAY 28, 2016 AND U.S. PREMIERE IN BOSTON BALLET’S 2017–2018 SEASON April 28, 2016 (BOSTON, MA)— Boston Ballet and The Royal Ballet have announced their first co-production, Obsidian Tear, choreographed by The Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor. Obsidian Tear, inspired by renowned Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen’s orchestral work Nyx, features an all-male cast. Salonen, who was recently named Composer in Residence with the New York Philharmonic, will make his Royal Ballet debut conducting the world premiere. The work will see its world premiere in London May 28, 2016, and its U.S. premiere in Boston Ballet’s 2017–2018 season in Boston. In addition to the groundbreaking work Chroma—performed by Boston Ballet in 2013 and 2015 to critical acclaim with repeated standing ovations—Obsidian Tear will be the second work of McGregor’s in Boston Ballet’s repertoire. After Boston Ballet’s debut performance in Chroma, Thea Singer of the Boston Globe stated: “The Boston Ballet dancers astonish with their master of the choreography, contorting this way and that with remarkable intensity.” McGregor will reveal additional plans for the world premiere and co-production at The Royal Opera House’s Insights event on May 11, 2016, 2:15 pm EDT / 7:15 pm BST. The event will be live-streamed for viewers around the world to enjoy on The Royal Opera House YouTube Channel. "I am honored and delighted that Boston Ballet is partnering with The Royal Ballet for this important co-production. We enjoyed a great working relationship with Monica Mason and I’m very happy to strengthen it further with Kevin O’Hare, and to partner with this iconic institution,” states Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet Artistic Director. “Wayne McGregor is one of the most dynamic, exhilarating choreographers today, and his creation of a world premiere to a score by one of my national heroes, Esa-Pekka Salonen, is one of the most exciting things imaginable. The Royal Ballet is very fortunate to have this exceptional artist as their resident choreographer, and I look forward to bringing this work to Boston." Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, adds "It’s very exciting to be partnering for the first time with Boston Ballet and a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with this world-renowned company. Wayne McGregor and Esa-Pekka are two of the most unique artists in their fields and Obsidian Tear promises to be a thrilling work.” Obsidian Tear crafts the solitary despair of Salonen’s Lachen Verlernt and the nihilistic symphonic grandeur of Nyx (inspired by the elusive Ancient Greek goddess of night) into a visceral exploration of myth and modernity. McGregor and Salonen are two of the foremost artistic geniuses working today. The New York Times remarks that McGregor is "doing some of the most exciting work on the planet" and The UK Times exclaims, “If any artist has defined the decade, it’s Wayne McGregor.” The set is designed by McGregor himself, with Katie Shillingford (Fashion Editor for Dazed and Confused Magazine and Fashion Director for AnOther Magazine) as Fashion Director, and lighting design by Lucy Carter, McGregor’s long-term collaborator. Obsidian Tear is made possible by the Boston Ballet Commissioners Circle: the Stephanie L. Brown Foundation, Andrea and Frederick Hoff, and Ruth and John Littlechild. Choreography: Wayne McGregor Music: Esa-Pekka Salonen Set Designer: Wayne McGregor Fashion Director: Katie Shillingford Lighting Designer: Lucy Carter About Boston Ballet Since 1963, Boston Ballet’s internationally acclaimed performances of classical, neo-classical, and contemporary ballets, combined with a dedication to world class dance education and community initiative programs, have made the institution a leader in its field, with a 52-year history of promoting excellence and access to dance. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen and Executive Director Max Hodges, the Company maintains a diverse repertoire, ranging from full-length ballets to new works by some of today's finest choreographers. Boston Ballet's second company, Boston Ballet II, is comprised of dancers who gain experience by performing with the Company and independently, presenting special programs to audiences throughout the Northeast. Programming for Boston Ballet’s 2015-2016 season includes Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler: A Ballet by John Neumeier, making Boston Ballet the first North American Company to perform the work; captivating classical works such as John Cranko’s Onegin and Mikko Nissinen’s Swan Lake; masterpieces by world-renowned choreographers such as George Balanchine and 20th century masters Leonid Yakobson and Léonide Massine; and two highly anticipated world premieres by Karole Armitage and Yury Yanowsky. Boston Ballet School, the official school of Boston Ballet, has a long-standing dedication to excellence and access. Led by Director Margaret Tracey, the School reaches more than 5,000 students (toddler to adult) each year through Boston Ballet School classes, the Summer Dance Workshop, Pre-professional Summer Dance Program and the Pre-Professional Training held at three studio locations in Boston, Newton, and Marblehead. Boston Ballet’s nationally-acclaimed education programs include Citydance, Adaptive Dance, and ECI On Location. The programs are offered in partnership with the Boston Public Schools and in communities throughout the city and region. For more information, please visit www.bostonballet.org. Boston Ballet gratefully acknowledges the following institutional partners: Barr Foundation Boston Cultural Council The Boston Foundation Klarman Family Foundation Massachusetts Cultural Council National Endowment for the Arts State Street Corporation, 2015 Innovation Partner

From the company: BOSTON BALLET ANNOUNCES LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIP WITH ESTEEMED CHOREOGRAPHER WILLIAM FORSYTHE May 4, 2016 (BOSTON, MA)—Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen is honored to announce a five-year partnership with internationally-renowned choreographer William Forsythe. The Company will add one new William Forsythe work to its repertoire each year, in addition to also presenting reprised works from the Company’s current repertoire. Nissinen and Forsythe will work together to select the programming for Boston Ballet, and the legendary choreographer and his assistants and stagers will work directly with the Company. This partnership will result in Boston Ballet having the richest collection of William Forsythe ballets in the United States. To kick off the partnership during the 2016–2017 season, Boston Ballet will present Forsythe’s full-length ARTIFACT, February 23–March 5, 2017, at the Boston Opera House. The Company will be the first North American company to perform the full-length work. In February 2017, a BB@home program entitled “Focus on Forsythe” will be dedicated to Forsythe and his work; he will participate in the program and the Company will perform. “I could not be more excited about this partnership. For me, and for Boston Ballet, it is a dream come true. Bill Forsythe is not only one of the greatest choreographers, he is a monumental modern artist,” explains Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. “I was fortunate to dance his ballets at San Francisco Ballet: the experience changed my dancing. I am super happy for our dancers to have this opportunity to dive deeper into his ballets and to work directly with Bill. Boston is one lucky city to have such extraordinary exposure to his incredible works. Fasten your seat belt, Boston!” “I am so delighted to have the opportunity to spend so much time with this wonderful, fresh ensemble,” states William Forsythe. “Mikko's support of the work means that the dancers and I can deepen our wonderful relationship and I will have a new home for new ideas.” Boston Ballet first presented Forsythe’s Love Songs in 1989. Since 2002, Mikko Nissinen has grown Boston Ballet’s Forsythe repertoire by four additional works: In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (2002, 2005), The Vile Parody of Address (2008 Night of Stars), The Second Detail (2011, 2012, 2014), and The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude (2015, 2016). This partnership will add at least five Forsythe works to Boston Ballet’s repertoire. William Forsythe is “widely recognized as one of the most important choreographers working today” (Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times) whose work has been performed by virtually every major ballet company in the world. Forsythe danced with the Joffrey Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet, where he was appointed Resident Choreographer in 1976. He spent the next seven years of his career creating new work for Stuttgart and companies around the world. In 1984, he began a 20-year tenure as director of Ballet Frankfurt. He later served as the director of The Forsythe Company—a new, more independent ensemble based in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main—which he directed from 2005–2015. In 2015, Forsythe was appointed Associate Choreographer of the Paris Opera Ballet. Forsythe’s work continues to be commissioned by the world’s most prestigious companies. Additionally, Forsythe regularly gives lectures and workshops at universities and institutions around the world. He is an Honorary Fellow at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London and holds an Honorary Doctorate from The Juilliard School. Currently, Forsythe is Professor of Dance and Artistic Advisor for the Choreographic Institute at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. About Boston Ballet Since 1963, Boston Ballet’s internationally acclaimed performances of classical, neo-classical, and contemporary ballets, combined with a dedication to world class dance education and community initiative programs, have made the institution a leader in its field, with a 52-year history of promoting excellence and access to dance. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen and Executive Director Max Hodges, the Company maintains a diverse repertoire, ranging from full-length ballets to new works by some of today's finest choreographers. Boston Ballet's second company, Boston Ballet II, is comprised of dancers who gain experience by performing with the Company and independently, presenting special programs to audiences throughout the Northeast. Programming for Boston Ballet’s 2015-2016 season includes Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler: A Ballet by John Neumeier, making Boston Ballet the first North American Company to perform the work; captivating classical works such as John Cranko’s Onegin and Mikko Nissinen’s Swan Lake; masterpieces by world-renowned choreographers such as George Balanchine and 20th century masters Leonid Yakobson and Léonide Massine; and two highly anticipated world premieres by Karole Armitage and Yury Yanowsky. Boston Ballet School, the official school of Boston Ballet, has a long-standing dedication to providing exceptional dance education and ballet training to students across three studios in Boston, Newton, and the North Shore. Led by Director Margaret Tracey, the School reaches more than 5,000 students (toddler to adult) each year through its four core programs: Children’s Program, Classical Ballet Program, Adult Dance Program, and Pre-Professional Program. Boston Ballet’s Department of Education and Community Initiatives (ECI) provides programming, events, and activities that connect the community to dance. ECI reaches more than 6,000 individuals in Boston, North Shore, and the surrounding communities each year through Citydance, ECI on Location, Adaptive Dance, and other community programs. For more information, please visit www.bostonballet.org.

A release: POLINA SEMIONOVA TO WITHDRAW FROM PERFORMANCES WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE Principal Dancer Polina Semionova will take a medical leave during American Ballet Theatre’s Spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, withdrawing from all previously scheduled performances, it was announced today by Kevin McKenzie, Artistic Director. Hee Seo will replace Semionova in performances of Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia on Tuesday evening, May 10 and the matinee on Saturday, May 14. Devon Teuscher will replace Semionova in performances of Alexei Ratmansky’s Symphony #9 on Tuesday evening, May 17 and Saturday evening, May 21. Gillian Murphy will replace Semionova in Swan Lake on Monday evening, June 13 and Isabella Boylston will replace Semionova in the ballet at the matinee on Saturday, June 18. Seo replaces Semionova in Romeo and Juliet on Friday evening, June 24. For more information and updated casting on American Ballet Theatre, please visit www.abt.org

The release: CLINTON LUCKETT NAMED ASSISTANT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Clinton Luckett, Ballet Master and former dancer at American Ballet Theatre, has been appointed Assistant Artistic Director of the Company. Luckett’s appointment, which becomes effective August 2016, was announced today by ABT Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. Luckett will succeed Victor Barbee, who was first named Assistant Artistic Director of the Company in 2001 and Associate Artistic Director in 2003. Barbee will assume the role of Associate Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet in July. “Clinton’s deep knowledge of the ballet repertoire, calm demeanor and incredible organizational skills make him perfectly suited for the role as Assistant Artistic Director at ABT,” said McKenzie. “His range of experience as a performer, Studio Company Associate and Ballet Master at ABT will serve him well in his new position.” Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Luckett began his dance training there and was accepted into the National Ballet School in Toronto in 1985. He joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1987 and was promoted to second soloist in 1991. In 1992, Luckett joined the corps de ballet of American Ballet Theatre where he was featured in the works of Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Martha Graham, Jirí Kylián, Lar Lubovitch, Kenneth MacMillan, Mark Morris and Antony Tudor, as well as roles in all of the Company's full-length ballets. He has appeared on television in the PBS/Dance in America programs ABT Now and Le Corsaire, and in the CBC/Rombus Media productions of Glen Tetley’s Alice and La Ronde. In 2002, Luckett was appointed Artistic Associate for Education and Training at American Ballet Theatre. In that position, he helped direct the ABT Studio Company, served as Company Teacher at ABT and was a member of the ABT New York Summer Intensive faculty. He was named Ballet Master at ABT in September 2006, while continuing to work with the Education Department as Artistic Coordinator for Special Projects (including ABTKids, Young People’s Ballet Workshop and Guggenheim Works & Process presentations) and Artistic Coordinator of the Apprentice Program. Luckett has served as a guest teacher for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and taught ballet at New York University. With American Ballet Theatre, Luckett performs the character roles of Dacha Dweller in The Bright Stream, Escalus and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, Galifron in The Sleeping Beauty and Gonzalo in The Tempest.

Casting is announced: CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR FIRST TWO WEEKS OF AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING SEASON AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE Casting for the first two weeks of American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. The season will begin on Monday, May 9 with eight performances of Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia, led by Gillian Murphy (Sylvia), Marcelo Gomes (Aminta), Craig Salstein (Eros) and James Whiteside (Orion). Jeffrey Cirio will debut as Eros on Tuesday evening, May 10. Exchange Artist Xander Parish, of the Mariinsky Ballet, will make his American Ballet Theatre debut as Aminta at the matinee on Wednesday, May 11, opposite Isabella Boylston (Sylvia), Gabe Stone Shayer (Eros) and Daniil Simkin (Orion), each also dancing these roles for the first time. Hee Seo and Blaine Hoven will debut as Sylvia and Aminta, respectively, at the evening performance on Wednesday, May 11. Maria Kochetkova will dance the title role for the first time on Friday evening, May 13. A ballet in three acts, Sylvia is set to music by Léo Delibes and features costumes and scenery after original designs by Robin and Christopher Ironside. Additional designs for Sylvia are by Peter Farmer and lighting is by Mark Jonathan. The World Premiere of the original production of Sylvia was given by The Royal Ballet on September 3, 1952 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, danced by Margot Fonteyn (Sylvia), Michael Somes (Aminta), John Hart (Orion) and Alexander Grant (Eros). The World Premiere of this revival of Sylvia by was given by The Royal Ballet on November 4, 2004 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, danced by Darcey Bussell (Sylvia), Jonathan Cope (Aminta), Thiago Soares (Orion) and Martin Harvey (Eros). Sylvia received its American Ballet Theatre Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on June 3, 2005, danced by Gillian Murphy (Sylvia), Maxim Beloserkovsky (Aminta), Marcelo Gomes (Orion) and Herman Cornejo (Eros). Sylvia was last performed by ABT in 2013. The 2016 Spring Gala will be held during the second week of the Met season, on Monday, May 16 at 6:30 P.M. The Gala performance will feature a World Premiere by Alexei Ratmansky set to Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium, with scenery and costumes by Jérôme Kaplan and lighting by Brad Fields. The World Premiere will be led by Herman Cornejo, Marcelo Gomes, Blaine Hoven, Calvin Royal III, Gabe Stone Shayer, Daniil Simkin, James Whiteside and Devon Teuscher. The evening will also feature Gillian Murphy in an excerpt from Sylvia, Hee Seo, Veronika Part and Cory Stearns in the vision scene from Act II of The Sleeping Beauty, Isabella Boylston and Jeffrey Cirio in the Pas de Ruban from La Fille mal gardée as well as a full performance of Ratmansky’s Firebird led by Misty Copeland, Marcelo Gomes, Stella Abrera and Cory Stearns. In addition, guest artist Alessandra Ferri will perform the Pie Jesu solo from Kenneth MacMillan's Requiem, set to music by Gabriel Fauré and sung by soprano Ying Fang. The second week of American Ballet Theatre’s Spring season will feature two repertory programs of works choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. The first program, Ratmansky’s 2013 Shostakovich Trilogy will be given three performances, May 17, 20 and 21 evening. A triple bill of Ratmansky works, featuring the Ratmansky/Bernstein premiere, Seven Sonatas (2009) and Firebird (2012), will have four performances, May 18 matinee and evening, May 19 and the matinee of May 21. Set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich and featuring scenery by George Tsypin, costumes by Keso Dekker and lighting by Jennifer Tipton, the Shostakovich Trilogy includes Symphony #9, Chamber Symphony and Piano Concerto #1. Polina Semionova, Marcelo Gomes, Herman Cornejo, Stella Abrera and Craig Salstein will lead the season’s first performance of Symphony #9 on Tuesday, May 17. Joseph Gorak will debut in the ballet on Friday, May 20. James Whiteside, Hee Seo, Isabella Boylston and Sarah Lane will lead the opening night cast of Chamber Symphony, with Boylston dancing this role for the first time. Jeffrey Cirio, Devon Teuscher, Gillian Murphy and Cassandra Trenary will debut in these roles on Friday, May 20. Gillian Murphy, Cory Stearns, Maria Kochetkova and Daniil Simkin will lead the season’s first performance of Piano Concerto #1. Symphony #9 received its World Premiere at New York City Center on October 18, 2012, led by Polina Semionova, Marcelo Gomes, Herman Cornejo, Simone Messmer and Craig Salstein. Chamber Symphony and Piano Concerto #1 both received their World Premieres at the Metropolitan Opera House on May 31, 2013, with Chamber Symphony danced by David Hallberg, Isabella Boylston, Paloma Herrera and Julie Kent, and Piano Concerto #1 led by Diana Vishneva, Cory Stearns, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev. On Wednesday, May 18, the new Ratmansky ballet will include debuts by Jeffrey Cirio at the matinee and by Alexandre Hammoudi, Thomas Forster, Jose Sebastian, Tyler Maloney, Arron Scott, Joseph Gorak and Hee Seo at the evening performance. The season’s first performance of Seven Sonatas, at the matinee on Wednesday, May 18, will be led by Veronika Part, Blaine Hoven, Hee Seo, Joseph Gorak, Sarah Lane and Herman Cornejo. Thomas Forster will debut in the ballet at the evening performance on Wednesday, May 18. Set to keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, Seven Sonatas features costumes by Holly Hynes and lighting by Brad Fields. Seven Sonatas received its World Premiere at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York on October 2, 2009. Misty Copeland, Marcelo Gomes, Stella Abrera and Cory Stearns will lead the performance of Firebird at the matinee on Wednesday, May 18. The evening performance on Wednesday, May 18 will feature Isabella Boylston as the Firebird, Alexandre Hammoudi as Ivan, Roman Zhurbin as Kaschei and Cassandra Trenary in her debut as the Maiden. Set to music by Igor Stravinsky, with sets by Simon Pastukh, costumes by Galina Solovyeva, lighting by Brad Fields and projections by Wendall K. Harrington, Ratmansky’s Firebird received its World Premiere on March 29, 2012 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, danced by Natalia Osipova, Marcelo Gomes, Simone Messmer and David Hallberg. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season, beginning at $20, are available online, at the Met box office or by phone at 212-362-6000. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City. For more information, visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org. AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE Metropolitan Opera House - Spring, 2016 FIRST WEEKMon. Eve., May 9, 7:30 P.M. SYLVIA – Murphy, Gomes, Salstein, Whiteside Tues. Eve., May 10, 7:30 P.M. SYLVIA – Semionova, Bolle, +Cirio, Stearns Wed. Mat., May 11, 2 P.M. SYLVIA – +Boylston, ++Parish, +Shayer, +Simkin Wed. Eve., May 11, 7:30 P.M. SYLVIA – +Seo, +Hoven, Scott, Hammoudi Thurs. Eve., May 12, 7:30 P.M. SYLVIA – Murphy, Gomes, Salstein, Whiteside Fri. Eve., May 13, 7:30 P.M. SYLVIA – +Kochetkova, Cornejo, Scott, Simkin Sat. Mat., May 14, 2 P.M. SYLVIA – Semionova, Bolle, Cirio, Stearns Sat. Eve., May 14, 8 P.M. SYLVIA – Boylston, Parish, Shayer, Simkin SECOND WEEKMon. Eve., May 16, 6:30 P.M. GALA SYLVIA (Hunt Scene) – Murphy SPEECH THE SLEEPING BEAUTY (Act II Vision – adagio and coda) – Seo, Part, Stearns LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE (Act I Ribbon Pas de Deux) – Boylston, Ciri REQUIEM (Pie Jesu) – *Ferri NEW RATMANSKY (World Premiere) – Whiteside, Cornejo, Royal, Simkin, Gomes, Hoven, Shayer, Teuscher FIREBIRD – Copeland, Gomes, +Abrera, Stearns Tues. Eve., May 17, 7:30 P.M. SHOSTOKOVICH TRILOGY SYMPHONY #9 – Semionova, Gomes, Cornejo CHAMBER SYMPHONY – Whiteside, Seo, +Boylston, Lane PIANO CONCERTO #1 – Murphy, Stearns, Kochetkova, Simkin Wed. Mat., May 18, 2 P.M. RATMANSKY TRIPLE BILL NEW BALLET – +Cirio, Gomes, Hoven, Royal, Shayer, Simkin, Whiteside, Teuscher SEVEN SONATAS – Part, Hoven, Seo, Gorak, Lane, Cornejo FIREBIRD – Copeland, Gomes, Stearns, Abrera Wed. Eve., May 18, 7:30 P.M. RATMANSKY TRIPLE BILL NEW BALLET – Cornejo, +Hammoudi, +Forster, +Sebastian, +Maloney, +Scott, +Gorak, +Seo SEVEN SONATAS – Abrera, Royal, Shevchenko, +Forster, Paris, Scott FIREBIRD – Boylston, Hammoudi, Zhurbin, +Trenary Thurs. Eve., May 19, 7:30 P.M. RATMANSKY TRIPLE BILL NEW BALLET – Cirio, Gomes, Hoven, Royal, Shayer, Simkin, Whiteside, Teuscher SEVEN SONATAS – Part, Hoven, Seo, Gorak, Lane, Cornejo FIREBIRD – Copeland, Gomes, Stearns, Abrera Fri. Eve., May 20, 7:30 P.M. SHOSTAKOVICH TRILOGY SYMPHONY #9 – Part, Bolle, +Gorak, Paris, Scott CHAMBER SYMPHONY – +Cirio, +Teuscher, +Murphy, +Trenary PIANO CONCERTO #1 – Shevchenko, Royal, Brandt, Shayer Sat. Mat., May 21, 2 P.M. RATMANSKY TRIPLE BILL NEW BALLET – Cornejo, Hammoudi, Forster, Sebastian, Maloney, Scott, Gorak, Seo SEVEN SONATAS – Abrera, Royal, Shevchenko, Forster, Paris, Scott FIREBIRD – Boylston, Hammoudi, Zhurbin, Trenary Sat. Eve., May 21, 8 P.M. SHOSTAKOVICH TRILOGY SYMPHONY #9 – Semionova, Gomes, Cornejo, Abrera, Salstein CHAMBER SYMPHONY – Whiteside, Seo, Boylston, Lane PIANO CONCERTO #1 – Murphy, Stearns, Kochetkova, Simkin +Editors please note first time in a role Tues., 5/10 – Cirio (Eros) in Sylvia Wed. Mat., 5/11 – Boylston (Sylvia), Shayer (Eros) and Simkin (Orion) in Sylvia Wed. Eve., 5/11 – Seo (Sylvia) and Hoven (Aminta) in Sylvia Fri., 5/13 – Kochetkova (Sylvia) in Sylvia Mon., 5/16 – Abrera (Maiden) in Firebird Tues., 5/17 – Boylston in Chamber Symphony Wed. Mat., 5/18 - Cirio in New Ballet Wed. Eve., 5/18 – Hammoudi, Forster, Sebastian, Maloney, Scott, Gorak, Seo in New Ballet; Forster in Seven Sonatas; Trenary (Maiden) in Firebird Fri, Eve., 5/20 – Gorak in Symphony #9; Cirio, Teuscher, Murphy, Trenary in Chamber Symphony ++Editors please note first time in a role with ABT Wed. Mat., 5/11 – Parish (Aminta) in Sylvia *Guest Artist

A release: AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING GALA AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE TO FEATURE WORLD PREMIERE BY ALEXEI RATMANSKY, MONDAY EVENING, MAY 16 AT 6:30 P.M. ALESSANDRA FERRI TO PERFORM THE PIE JESU FROM KENNETH MACMILLAN’S REQUIEM WITH GUEST SOPRANO YING FANG PAMELA FORD, MARY ELIZABETH SNOW, SUTTON STRACKE AND CARYN ZUCKER TO CHAIR ANNUAL BENEFIT The World Premiere of a new work by Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky will highlight American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Gala benefit on Monday, May 16 at 6:30 P.M. at the Metropolitan Opera House. The evening will also feature ABT’s renowned Principal Dancers in preview performances from the Company’s eight-week season, followed by dinner and dancing on the Promenade at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center. First Lady Michelle Obama will serve as Honorary Chair of ABT’s Spring Gala. Co-Chairs for the evening benefit are Pamela Ford, Mary Elizabeth Snow, Sutton Stracke and Caryn Zucker. Ariana Rockefeller and Elizabeth Ann Beller will serve as Junior Committee Co-Chairs. American Ballet Theatre’s Spring Gala will include appearances by Principal Dancers Stella Abrera, Isabella Boylston, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Marcelo Gomes, Gillian Murphy, Veronika Part, Hee Seo, Daniil Simkin, Cory Stearns and James Whiteside. The performance will feature excerpts from Act II of Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, scenes from Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia and La Fille mal gardée, the World Premiere by Ratmansky set to Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium and a full performance of Firebird. In addition, guest artist Alessandra Ferri will perform the Pie Jesu solo from Kenneth MacMillan's Requiem, set to music by Gabriel Fauré and sung by soprano Ying Fang. Gala benefit tickets, beginning at $2,500, include the performance and post-performance dinner and dancing. For Gala benefit ticket information, call American Ballet Theatre’s Special Events office at 212-477-3030, ext. 3239. A portion of the evening’s proceeds will support ABT’s education and community outreach programs. Performance-only tickets, beginning at $25, are available online, at the Metropolitan Opera house box office or by calling 212-362-6000. For more information, please visit ABT’s website at www.abt.org. Follow American Ballet Theatre on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ABTBallet on Facebook at http://facebook.com/AmericanBalletTheatre or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/ABTBalletTheatre

This is so wonderful!!

From the company: MATHIAS HEYMANN OF THE PARIS OPERA BALLET TO APPEAR AS EXCHANGE ARTIST WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE DURING 2016 SPRING SEASON AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE Mathias Heymann, an étoile with the Paris Opera Ballet, will debut as an Exchange Artist with American Ballet Theatre during the Company’s 2016 Spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, it was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. Heymann will perform the role of Conrad in Le Corsaire at the evening performance on Wednesday, June 1 and at the matinee on Saturday, June 4, opposite Gillian Murphy as Medora. Heymann began his ballet training in his hometown of Marseille, France at the Académie Danse Attitude, under the direction of Véronique Sottile. He entered the Paris Opera Ballet School in 2001 and joined the company’s corps de ballet in 2004, at age 17. He was promoted to coryphée in 2006, to sujet in 2007 and to premier danseur in 2008. Heymann was named étoile in April 2009. His awards include the Prix du public/AROP and the Prix Carpeaux, both in 2006, and the Prix Benois de la Danse in 2012. He was named a Knight of France’s Order of Arts and Letters in 2014. His repertoire with the Paris Opera Ballet includes Afternoon of a Faun, Solor and the Golden Idol in La Bayadère, Incitatus in Caligula, Autumn and the Dance Teacher in Cinderella, Franz in Coppélia, Basilio in Don Quixote, Baptiste in Les Enfants du Paradis, Colas and the Flute Dancer in La Fille mal gardée, Melancholic in The Four Temperaments, Albrecht and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Des Grieux in Lady of the Camellias, Drosselmeyer /the Prince in The Nutcracker, Lensky in Onegin, the pas de trois and Lucien d’Hervilly in Paquita, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Rubies in Jewels, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty, Zaël in La Source, the Rose in Le Spectre de la Rose, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, James in La Sylphide and roles in The Anatomy of Sensation, Genus, In The Night, Kaguyahime, Manfred, Suite en Blanc, Symphony in C and Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler. Tickets for American Ballet Theatre's 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season, beginning at $20, are available online, at the Met box office or by phone at 212-362-6000. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City. For more information, visit ABT's website at www.abt.org.

From the company: DEVON TEUSCHER TO RECEIVE 2016 LEONORE ANNENBERG ARTS FELLOWSHIP American Ballet Theatre Soloist Devon Teuscher has been awarded a 2016 Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship. The Fellowship, which recognizes young artists of extraordinary talent, provides additional resources to help them realize their full potential. To encourage the personal and artistic development of young artists, the one-year Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship will provide funds to cover training and expenses outside of ABT’s regular season, such as guest coaches/teachers, master teachers, a physical therapist/trainer, specialty teachers to explore artistic areas outside of dance, pianists and studio space, as well as college courses and business/entrepreneurial interests. Devon Teuscher was born in Pennsylvania and began her dance training at the age of nine under Deanna Doty of the Champaign Urbana Ballet Academy in Champaign, Illinois. She continued her training at the Vermont Ballet Theatre School under the direction of Alex and Kirsten Nagiba. She attended summer intensives at The Kirov Ballet Academy, Pacific Northwest Ballet and American Ballet Theatre on scholarship. In 2005, Teuscher began training at the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School on full scholarship. Teuscher joined the ABT Studio Company in 2006, the main Company as an apprentice in 2007 and the corps de ballet in 2008. She was promoted to Soloist in 2014. Her repertoire with the Company includes Polyhymnia in Apollo, a Shade in La Bayadère, the Fairy Godmother in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, a flower girl in Don Quixote, Myrta in Giselle, Caroline in Jardin aux Lilas, Hagar in Pillar of Fire, the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, the pas de trois and a big swan in Swan Lake, Diana in Sylvia and roles in Airs, Bach Partita, Baker's Dozen, Citizen, Company B, Duets, Dumbarton, Everything Doesn't Happen at Once, Gong, In the Upper Room, Thirteen Diversions, Valse Fantaisie and With a Chance of Rain. Teuscher created the Fairy Candide (Sincerity) in Alexei Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty and a role in Mark Morris’ After You. The Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Leonore Annenberg (1918-2009) served as U.S. Chief of Protocol during the first term of President Ronald Reagan. Her philanthropic work focused on education, the arts and civic affairs. Visit www.leonoreannenbergscholarships.org for more information.

Press release: AMERICAN PREMIERE OF ALEXEI RATMANSKY’S THE GOLDEN COCKEREL AND WORLD PREMIERE OF NEW RATMANSKY WORK TO HIGHLIGHT AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE’S 2016 SPRING SEASON AT METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, MAY 9-JULY 2, 2016 SEASON TO FEATURE RATMANSKY FESTIVAL AND REVIVAL OF FREDERICK ASHTON’S LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE GUEST ARTIST ALESSANDRA FERRI AND EXCHANGE ARTIST XANDER PARISH SCHEDULED TO PERFORM PRINCIPAL DANCERS STELLA ABRERA AND GILLIAN MURPHY TO CELEBRATE 20 YEARS WITH COMPANY BOX OFFICE OPENS MARCH 20 AT 12 NOON American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring season will be highlighted by a World Premiere work by Alexei Ratmansky, the American Premiere of Ratmansky’s The Golden Cockerel and a revival of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée. Tickets for ABT’s Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House go on sale at the box office on Sunday, March 20 at 12 Noon. Principal Dancers for the 2016 Metropolitan Opera House season include Stella Abrera, Roberto Bolle, Isabella Boylston, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Marcelo Gomes, Maria Kochetkova, Alban Lendorf, Gillian Murphy, Veronika Part, Polina Semionova, Hee Seo, Daniil Simkin, Cory Stearns, Diana Vishneva and James Whiteside. Former American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Alessandra Ferri will perform as a Guest Artist on Thursday evening, June 23 in the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet for the first time since her retirement from the Company in 2007. Xander Parish of the Mariinsky Ballet will debut with the Company as an Exchange Artist. Parish will dance the role of Aminta in Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia at the matinee on Wednesday, May 11 and Saturday evening, May 14. Principal Dancers Stella Abrera and Gillian Murphy will also celebrate their 20th anniversary of performances with the Company. 2016 Spring Gala Performance and World Premiere American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Gala will be held during the second week of the Met season on Monday, May 16 at 6:30 P.M. The Gala performance will include a World Premiere by Alexei Ratmansky, set to Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium, Ratmansky’s Firebird and excerpts from the season’s repertoire. For information on ABT’s 2016 Spring Gala, please call the Special Events Office at 212-477-3030, ext. 3310. All-Ratmansky Festival The second week of American Ballet Theatre’s Spring season, May 17-23, will feature two repertory programs of works choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. The first program, Ratmansky’s 2013 Shostakovich Trilogy, features the choreographer’s Symphony #9, Chamber Symphony and Piano Concerto #1. Shostakovich Trilogy will be given four performances, May 17, 20, 21 evening and 23. A triple bill of Ratmansky works, featuring the Ratmansky/Bernstein premiere, Seven Sonatas (2009) and Firebird (2012), will have four performances, May 18 matinee and evening, May 19 and the matinee of May 21. American Premiere Alexei Ratmansky’s The Golden Cockerel will receive its American Premiere on Monday evening, June 6, 2016 with Veronika Part (Queen of Shemakah) and Skylar Brandt (the Golden Cockerel) leading the first cast. Set to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, arranged by Yannis Samprovalakis, with sets and costumes by Richard Hudson, Ratmansky’s The Golden Cockerel is inspired by Michel Fokine’s 1914 production for the Ballet Russes. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s folktale, The Golden Cockerel was first presented on May 21, 1914 at the Théâtre Nationale de l’Opera, Paris, with choreography by Michel Fokine and scenery and costumes by Natalia Goncharova. Ratmansky’s choreography for The Golden Cockerel received its World Premiere by the Royal Danish Ballet on September 29, 2012 at the Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark. Ann Holm-Jensen Peyk will assist in the staging of the ballet for ABT. Revival Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée returns to the repertory on Tuesday evening, May 24 for eight performances through Monday, May 30. Set to music by Ferdinand Hérold, freely adapted and arranged by John Lanchbery from the 1828 version, La Fille mal gardée features designs by Osbert Lancaster, a scenario by Jean Dauberval and lighting by Brad Fields. Isabella Boylston and Jeffrey Cirio will dance the leading roles of Lise and Colas in the ballet’s first performance of the season on May 24. Gillian Murphy will celebrate her 20th Anniversary with ABT at the evening performance on Saturday, May 28. La Fille mal gardée received its World Premiere by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on January 28, 1960, danced by Nadia Nerina (Lise), David Blair (Colas), Alexander Grant (Alain) and Stanley Holden (Widow Simone). The ballet received its United States Premiere by The Royal Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on September 14, 1960, danced by the same cast. La Fille mal gardée received its American Ballet Theatre Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on May 31, 2002, danced by Ashley Tuttle (Lise) and Ethan Stiefel (Colas). Last performed by ABT in 2003, the ballet will be staged for the Company by Malin Thoors. Full-Length Ballets American Ballet Theatre will present five additional full-length ballets during its 2016 Spring season. Gillian Murphy, Marcelo Gomes and James Whiteside will dance the leading roles in the season’s first performance of Ashton’s Sylvia on Monday evening, May 9. A ballet in three acts, Sylvia is set to music by Léo Delibes and features costumes and scenery after original designs by Robin and Christopher Ironside. Additional designs for Sylvia are by Peter Farmer and lighting is by Mark Jonathan. The World Premiere of the original production of Sylvia was given by The Royal Ballet on September 3, 1952 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, danced by Margot Fonteyn (Sylvia), Michael Somes (Aminta), John Hart (Orion) and Alexander Grant (Eros). The World Premiere of this revival of Sylvia by was given by The Royal Ballet on November 4, 2004 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, danced by Darcey Bussell (Sylvia), Jonathan Cope (Aminta), Thiago Soares (Orion) and Martin Harvey (Eros). Sylvia received its American Ballet Theatre Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on June 3, 2005, danced by Gillian Murphy (Sylvia), Maxim Beloserkovsky (Aminta), Marcelo Gomes (Orion) and Herman Cornejo (Eros). Sylvia was last performed by ABT in 2013. The season’s first performance of Le Corsaire on Tuesday, May 31 features Maria Kochetkova, Herman Cornejo, Sarah Lane, Daniil Simkin and Jeffrey Cirio in the leading roles. Based on the Lord Byron poem “The Corsair” (1814), the ballet features choreography by Konstantin Sergeyev after Marius Petipa, and staging by Anna-Marie Holmes after Petipa and Sergeyev, with music by Adolphe Adam, Cesare Pugni, Léo Delibes, Riccardo Drigo and Prince Oldenbourg. Scenery and costumes are by Irina Tibilova, with additional costume designs by Robert Perdziola and lighting by Mary Jo Dondlinger. Le Corsaire received its Company Premiere by American Ballet Theatre on June 19, 1998 with Nina Ananiashvili (Medora), Giuseppe Picone (Conrad), Ashley Tutttle (Gulnare), Angel Corella (Birbanto), Jose Manuel Carréno (Ali, the slave) and Vladimir Malakhov (Lankendem). Eight performances of Swan Lake, choreographed by Kevin McKenzie after Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, will be given beginning Monday, June 13 with Polina Semionova and Marcelo Gomes leading the opening night cast. Swan Lake is set to the score by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky and features scenery and costumes by Zack Brown and lighting by Duane Schuler. This production of Swan Lake premiered on March 24, 2000 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. with Julie Kent (Odette-Odile), Angel Corella (Prince Siegfried) and Marcelo Gomes (von Rothbart). Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet will be given eight performances beginning Monday evening, June 20 with Hee Seo and Cory Stearns in the title roles. Set to the score by Sergei Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet features scenery and costumes by Nicholas Georgiadis and lighting by Thomas Skelton. Romeo and Juliet received its World Premiere by The Royal Ballet in London on February 9, 1965 and was given its ABT Company Premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 22, 1985 with Leslie Browne and Robert La Fosse in the leading roles. Last season’s World Premiere production of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty returns to the Metropolitan Opera House for eight performances beginning Monday evening, June 27 with Isabella Boylston and Joseph Gorak in the leading roles. Stella Abrera will debut in the role of Aurora on Thursday evening, June 30. The performance will also celebrate Abrera’s 20th Anniversary with ABT. Set to the classic score by Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, The Sleeping Beauty has choreography by Marius Petipa and staging and additional choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, with assistance by Tatiana Ratmansky. The production features scenery and costumes by Tony Award®-winning designer Richard Hudson. Hudson’s designs are based on the historic work of Léon Bakst, who created a seminal version of The Sleeping Beauty for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1921. The Sleeping Beauty received its World Premiere on March 3, 2015 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, danced by Diana Vishneva (Princess Aurora) and Marcelo Gomes (Prince Désiré). ABTKids ABTKids, American Ballet Theatre’s annual one-hour introduction to ballet for young audience members and their families, is scheduled for Saturday morning, June 11 at 11:30 A.M. The performance is recommended for children ages 4-12, and features child-friendly highlights from the season’s repertoire. All tickets for ABTKids are $25. ABTKids Workshop Series ABTKids pre-performance workshops, one-hour activity-based programs led by ABT Teaching Artists, are available to ABTKids ticket holders, 12 and under, on Saturday, June 11 (9:30 A.M.) and to matinee ticket holders on Saturday, June 4 (11:00 A.M.) and Saturday, June 18 (11:00 A.M.). Saturday workshops will be held in the rehearsal studios of the Metropolitan Opera House. Tickets are $20 and available only to ticket holders to the performance following the workshop. For tickets and more information on the ABTKids Workshop series, please visit www.abt.org/education/workshops.asp. Individual tickets for American Ballet Theatre’s 2016 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House, on sale beginning Sunday, March 20 at 12:00 Noon, are available at the Met box office, by phone at 212-362-6000, or online at ABT’s website www.abt.org. Tickets start at $20. The Metropolitan Opera House is located on Broadway between 64th and 65th streets in New York City.

A release: NEW YORK, NY: March 14, 2016 – At its third annual Eight Over Eighty benefit gala, The New Jewish Home (formerly, Jewish Home Lifecare) will pay tribute to eight New Yorkers who, in their ninth and tenth decades, continue to live lives of remarkable achievement, vitality and civic engagement. The event, at the Mandarin Oriental New York on Monday, April 11, is expected to attract more than 450 guests and raise more than $1 million for the nonprofit New Jewish Home’s rehabilitation, skilled nursing, and home healthcare programs, which together serve 12,000 older adults each year. The honorees, each of whom will be celebrated in a video vignette, are financier Bob Appel, singer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte, ballet great Jacques d’Amboise, philanthropist Joy Henshel, Broadway superstar Chita Rivera, legendary ad man Keith Reinhard, gossip queen Liz Smith, and Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, Caroll Spinney. These men and women represent the best of the best in arts and entertainment, advertising, business, volunteerism and philanthropy. They are movers and shakers who are still contributing and still making waves, in the process showing the world that trailblazing is ageless. Biographies of the honorees follow below; for photos, please visit www.8over80.org. “By 2030, 30 percent of the U.S. population will be over 80,” said Audrey Weiner, President and CEO of The New Jewish Home. “Like the teeming energy New York itself, the variety of accomplishments and the personalities of our eight honorees shows us what it means to age like a New Yorker. In other words, the sky’s the limit for these vibrant men and women, still going strong over 80.” # # # Bob Appel is President of Appel Associates, a money management and investment firm, and was a partner of the investment advisory firm Neuberger Berman for 20 years. He is Chairman of the Board of Jazz at Lincoln Center, to which, in 2014, he and his wife, Helen, made the largest individual gift in the organization’s history. He is also a trustee emeritus of Cornell University and a committed fundraiser for Weill Cornell Medical College, home of the Helen and Robert Appel Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. Harry Belafonte is an outstanding performer and producer whose album “Calypso” became the first recording in history to sell more than a million copies. He is also a humanitarian with a long and distinguished record of human rights advocacy that includes serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and organizing the multi-artist “We Are the World” recording, which raised millions of dollars for emergency assistance in Africa. Belafonte’s many awards include the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of the Arts. One of the finest classical dancers of our time, Jacques d’Amboise is also an arts education leader who created a model program that has introduced thousands of school children to the magic and discipline of dance and the founder of the National Dance Institute. As a dancer, Mr. d’Amboise is most remembered for his portrayal of what critics called “the definitive Apollo.” A choreographer as well, his credits include almost 20 works commissioned for New York City Ballet. Joy Henshel is a longtime, esteemed director of The New Jewish Home’s Sarah Neuman Center as well as being a prolific philanthropist in the areas of the arts, health, social justice and Jewish organizations. Her public service includes her appointment by Mayor John Lindsay to the New York-Tokyo sister city program in 1966, and two years of work for the events firm planning and executing Liberty Weekend, the four-day celebration of the restoration and centennial of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Mrs. Henshel is an active trustee of Surprise Lake Camp, a longtime volunteer at White Plains Hospital, the mother of four daughters, and a very generous donor to The New Jewish Home. Under the leadership of Keith Reinhard, DDB Worldwide, one of the world's largest and most creative advertising agency networks, produced award-winning work for Volkswagen, Anheuser-Busch, Frito-Lay, Dell Computer, JC Penney, Ameriquest and many other clients. Reinhard himself gave birth to such memorable advertising characters and slogans as, for McDonald’s, the Hamburglar and "You Deserve a Break Today,” which in 1999 Advertising Age named the best advertising jingle of the 20th century and one of the century's top-five campaigns. After her breakout portrayal of Anita in 1957’s West Side Story, the great Broadway star Chita Rivera went on to earn a Tony nomination for Bye Bye Birdie and Tony Awards for The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Her many other spellbinding performances include those in Nine; Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, (another Tony nomination); The Mystery of Edwin Drood; and The Visit, for which she received her tenth Tony nomination. Rivera has received the Kennedy Center Honors award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A writer of humor, wit and empathy, Liz Smith is much more than a gossip columnist, though she helped define the term. Smith began writing in the 1950s and has never stopped, working for Hearst, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated, the New York Daily News, “Live at Five,” Newsday, the New York Post, and now The Huffington Post and New York Social Diary. She is a best-selling author and has the distinction of being the only columnist to have had her column printed in three major New York City papers simultaneously. For more than 40 years, Caroll Spinney has been Sesame Street’s Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, in the process earning four Emmy Awards, two Gold Records, and two Grammy Awards. In 2000, the Library of Congress declared Spinney’s Big Bird a "Living Legend." With J Milligan, Spinney has written The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch): Lessons from a Life in Feathers. Spinney recently received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award from the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences. # # # About THE NEW JEWISH HOME: Serving New Yorkers of all faiths and ethnicities for 167 years, The New Jewish Home (formerly, Jewish Home Lifecare) is transforming eldercare as we know it. One of the nation’s largest and most diversified not‐for‐profit geriatric health and rehabilitation systems, Jewish Home serves 12,000 older adults each year, in their homes and on three campuses, through short-term rehabilitation, long‐term skilled nursing, low-income housing, and a wide range of home health programs. Jewish Home believes that high quality care and personal dignity are everyone’s right, regardless of background or economic circumstances. Technology, innovation, applied research and new models of care put The New Jewish Home at the vanguard of eldercare providers across the country. For more information, visit www.jewishhome.org.

From the company: AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE STUDIO COMPANY TO PERFORM AT THE JOYCE THEATER APRIL 15-17, 2016 Friday Evening Performance to Include a World Premiere by Ethan Stiefel and New York City Premieres by George Williamson and Gemma Bond The American Ballet Theatre Studio Company will present three performances at the Joyce Theater, April 15-17, 2016. Performance times are 8:00 PM on Friday, April 15 and Saturday, April 16, and 2:00 PM on Sunday, April 17. Friday evening’s performance will include the ABT Studio Company in the New York City Premieres of Gemma Bond’s Third Wheels and George Williamson’s Murmuration, as well as the world premiere of Knightlife, choreographed by Ethan Stiefel, and Raymond Luken’s Danse Baroque, both featuring students in Level 7 of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon’s performances will feature the ABT Studio Company in Alexei Ratmansky’s Bolero, the Pas d’Action from La Bayadère, Ethan Stiefel’s Bier Halle, Marco Pelle’s Libera! and Gemma Bond’s Third Wheels. The American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, directed by Kate Lydon, is comprised of 16 dancers of outstanding potential aged 16-20. In addition to a schedule of classes including ballet technique, pointe, variations, partnering, modern, Pilates, men's strengthening, acting and dance history, the ABT Studio Company gains performance experience through residencies, cultural exchanges and local performances. The ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School serves approximately 300 students and encompasses a Pre-Professional Division for dancers ages 12-18 and a Children’s Division for dancers ages 3-14. Classes include classical ballet technique, pointe, partnering, men's class, character, modern technique, variations and Pilates. Instruction at the ABT JKO School is based on ABT's National Training Curriculum, which combines scientific principles with elements from the classic French, Italian and Russian schools of training. The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for three decades. The founders, Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, acquired and renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea, which opened as The Joyce Theater in 1982. The Joyce Theater is named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 2009, The Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce’s Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through informative post-performance Curtain Chats. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000. Tickets, starting at $10, can be purchased online at https://goo.gl/9hCR5t, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue in New York City. For more information about performances by the ABT Studio Company, please call the ABT Education Department at 212-477-3030, ext. 1177 or visit http://www.abt.org/education/studiocompany.asp. Northern Trust is the Leading Corporate Sponsor of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre.