Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) is a ballet company in Portland, Oregon, United States. The company performs an annual five-program season at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and conducts regional and national tours. [1] It was featured in the October/November 2007 issue of Pointe magazine, with principal dancer Kathi Martuza on the cover. [2]
The company is the result of the 1989 merger of Ballet Oregon and Pacific Ballet Theater. [3] James Canfield, a former dancer with Joffrey Ballet and principal dancer with Pacific Ballet Theater, served as Artistic Director of Oregon Ballet Theater from its inception until 2003. [1] Under his leadership the company repertoire grew to comprise over 80 ballets, from evening-length works to contemporary pieces. [1]
Christopher Stowell was the artistic director from 2003 to the end of 2012. During Stowell's tenure, the company added the work of Sir Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, William Forsythe, Lar Lubovitch, and Christopher Wheeldon to its repertoire. New works have been created on the company by James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, Julia Adam, and Nicolo Fonte. In addition, Christopher Stowell choreographed eight new ballets with the company's dancers. [1]
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.
Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) is a ballet company based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It is said to have the highest per capita attendance in the United States, with 11,000 subscribers in 2004. The company consists of 49 dancers; there are more than 100 performances throughout the year.
Ethan Stiefel is an American dancer, choreographer, and director. He was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) from 1997 until July 2012. He was the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet from 2011 to 2014. His wife is Gillian Murphy, also a principal dancer with ABT.
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.
The American National Ballet (Minnesota) closed in 2006. It was a ballet company based in Duluth, Minnesota, founded by Armando Maldonado in 2001.
The Washington Ballet (TWB) is an ensemble of professional ballet dancers based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1976 by Mary Day and has been directed by Julie Kent since 2016.
Polina Alexandrovna Semionova is a Russian ballet dancer and model for Uniqlo who is currently a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre in New York and with the Berlin State Ballet. She is a professor at the Berlin State Ballet School.
Northern Ballet, formerly Northern Ballet Theatre, is a dance company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with a strong repertoire in theatrical dance productions where the emphasis is on story telling as well as classical ballet. The company tours widely across the United Kingdom.
The Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts was created in 2019 when the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Toledo Ballet merged. Based in Toledo, Ohio, it operated with a $13.2 million budget in its fiscal year 2020 and maintains the two brand names Toledo Symphony (sic) and Toledo Ballet, each with its own website. The orchestra part of TAPA performs at various venues, including the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle Theater, the Valentine Theatre, the Toledo Club, the Stranahan Theater and some twenty churches and performing arts centers across the region.
Craig Hall is an American ballet dancer. He danced with the New York City Ballet as a soloist until 2016 then became a repertory director, and was one of the company interim leaders between late 2017 and early 2019.
Ballet Quad Cities is a ballet company located in Rock Island, Illinois. It was founded in 1996 by Joedy Cook. The company performs both classical and contemporary dance at various venues in the greater Quad Cities region of Illinois and Iowa.
Christopher Stowell is an American ballet dancer and choreographer. He is currently the associate artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. He was previously the artistic director of the Oregon Ballet Theatre. Before that, he danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet for sixteen years.
Alison Roper is an American professional ballet dancer who performed as a principal dancer with the Oregon Ballet Theatre.
Kathi Martuza is an American professional ballet dancer who currently performs as a principal dancer with the Oregon Ballet Theatre. She previously danced with the San Francisco Ballet for six years and is also known as Kathleen Martuza.
The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre is the associate school of American Ballet Theatre located at 890 Broadway, within the Flatiron District of Manhattan, New York City. The school comprises a children's division for ages 4 to 12, a pre-professional division for ages 12 to 18, and the preparatory program "Studio Company" for ages 16 to 20. It was established in 2004 and named in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who served on ABT's Board of Trustees as honorary chairman emerita for many years prior to her death. Besides its parent company, graduates of JKO have found employment in various companies, such as National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and Dutch National Ballet. Stella Abrera will become the school's interim artistic director for a year, starting in August 2022, following Cynthia Harvey's departure in May.
Greensboro Ballet is a professional ballet company in North Carolina. It is the only ballet company in the Piedmont Triad. It is one of the few non-profit ballet companies in North Carolina. Greensboro Ballet has presented works by George Balanchine. The company also has performed a number of works made especially for the Greensboro Ballet by Rick McCullough, Jill Eathorne Bahr, Leslie Jane Pessemier, Elissa Minet Fuchs, and Emery LeCrone. Maryhelen Mayfield, who served as artistic and executive director of Greensboro Ballet from 1980 to 2019, choreographed over twenty-five works for the company.
Virginia Johnson is an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and journalist. She currently serves as the artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem and is a founding member and former principal dancer of the company. From 2000 to 2009 she was the editor-in-chief of Pointe.
Julie Diana Hench is an American ballet dancer, teacher, writer and arts administrator. She joined the San Francisco Ballet in 1993, and was promoted to principal dancer in 2000. In 2004, she joined the Pennsylvania Ballet, where she remained until her retirement from performing in 2014, though she remained in the company for another year as a ballet master. In 2015, she became the executive director at Juneau Dance Theatre. In 2017, she was named executive director of the American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet School. She has written for various dance publications.
Francia Russell is the former co-artistic director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and former director of Pacific Northwest Ballet School, from 1977 to 2005. She was a soloist with the New York City Ballet, where she later became ballet master. In 1975, Russell became co-artistic director of Frankfurt Ballet with her husband, Kent Stowell, and in 1977, they accepted the position of artistic directors of Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, Washington. With Stowell, Russell built Pacific Northwest Ballet from a local organization to one of national and international prominence.
