American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual eight-week season at the Metropolitan Opera House in the spring and a shorter season at the David H. Koch Theater in the fall; the company tours around the world the rest of the year. The company was scheduled to have a 5-week spring season at the MET preceded by a 2-week season at the Koch Theater beginning in 2020. ABT is the parent company of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and was recognized as "America's National Ballet Company" in 2006 by the United States Congress.
Gelsey Kirkland is an American ballerina. She received early ballet training at the School of American Ballet. Kirkland joined the New York City Ballet in 1968 at age 15, at the invitation of George Balanchine. She was promoted to soloist in 1969, and principal in 1972. She went on to create leading roles in many of the great twentieth century ballets by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Antony Tudor, including Balanchine's revival of The Firebird, Robbins' Goldberg Variations, and Tudor's The Leaves are Fading.
The Louisville Ballet is a ballet school and company based in Louisville, Kentucky and is the official state ballet of The Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is led by artistic and executive director Robert Curran, an Australian dancer and choreographer.
Altynai Abduakhimkyzy Asylmuratova is a Kazakh-born former ballerina who is artistic director of the ballet company at Astana Opera. She is a former prima ballerina with the Kirov Ballet and a guest artist all over the world.
Sascha Radetsky is a former ballet dancer and actor. He was a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre and a principal with Dutch National Ballet. He is known for having starred as Charlie in the motion picture Center Stage and as Ross in the Starz miniseries Flesh and Bone. In 2018 he was named artistic director of American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company.
Katherine Healy is an American former principal ballerina and actress who also had a professional performing career in figure skating.
Lawrence Pech is a dancer, choreographer and teacher currently living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The company Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo was formed in 1932 after the death of Sergei Diaghilev and the demise of Ballets Russes. Its director was Wassily de Basil, and its artistic director was René Blum. They fell out in 1936 and the company split. The part which de Basil retained went through two name changes before becoming the Original Ballet Russe. Blum founded Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, which changed its name to Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo when Léonide Massine became artistic director in 1938. It operated under this name until it disbanded some 20 years later.
The Cincinnati Ballet is a professional ballet company founded as Cincinnati Civic Ballet in 1958, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. After being registered as a company, it had its first performance in 1964.
Jeffrey Golladay is an American ballet dancer and was a member of the corps de ballet with American Ballet Theatre (ABT).
Amedeo Amodio is an Italian choreographer and former ballet dancer. Trained at the Teatro alla Scala where he performed notably with Carla Fracci, he was appointed artistic director of the Reggio Emilia based modern ballet company Aterballetto in 1979 and served in that role until 1996. Most recently, in 2003, he accepted a position as artistic director of the ballet company at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Sicily.
The Cape Town City Ballet Company, formerly known as the CAPAB Ballet Company, is a dance company based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Robert Garland is the artistic director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where he was a principal dancer and their first official resident choreographer. He has also choreographed for the New York City Ballet, The Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and the Oakland Ballet, among many others.
Sallie Wilson was a ballerina who appeared with New York City Ballet where she danced opposite Martha Graham in the premiere of Graham and George Balanchine's collaboration at NYCB, Episodes in May, 1959, and subsequently with American Ballet Theatre, where she was associated with several ballets created by Antony Tudor. In 1966, she achieved a triumph as Hagar in ABT's revival of Tudor's ballet Pillar of Fire, set to the music of Arnold Schoenberg's Transfigured Night. The ballet is loosely based on the poem that inspired the Schoenberg piece rather than the Biblical story of Hagar.
Leonid Kozlov is a former principal dancer of the Bolshoi and New York City Ballet. He is also a choreographer, the founder and owner of Kozlov Dance International (KDI) and Youth Dance Festival of New Jersey.
István Martin is a Franco-Hungarian ballet dancer.
Colorado Ballet encompasses a 31-member professional performing ballet company, a studio company for advanced dance students, an academy, and an education and outreach department. Based in downtown Denver, Colorado, Colorado Ballet serves more than 125,000 patrons each year.
The Oklahoma City Ballet is a professional dance company and school located in Oklahoma City. The company began under the artistic direction of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dancers Yvonne Chouteau and Miguel Terekhov in the Science and Arts Foundation building on the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds.
Annabelle Lyon was an American ballerina. She was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre.
Oleg Mikhailovich Vinogradov is a Russian former dancer, choreographer and ballet director. He graduated from the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet under Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin and went on to become a choreographer, working with some of the Soviet Union's most important ballet companies, including the Kirov Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet. In the early 1970s he was artistic director and chief choreographer at the Maly Theatre Ballet, and became artistic director of the Kirov Ballet in 1977. During this period, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States grew warmer, and the Kirov Ballet embarked on several US tours for the first time in decades. Vinogradov became the first Soviet ballet master to invite Maurice Béjart and Roland Petit to stage works for the Kirov, and also helped to bring authorized productions of George Balanchine's ballets to Russia for the first time. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1983.
