Philip H. Neal (born in Richmond, Virginia) was a principal dancer with New York City Ballet.
He studied from age 11 at the Richmond Ballet School. After studying there, Edward Villella arranged a summer scholarship for him at NCYB's School of American Ballet. In 1985 Philip won the silver medal at the Prix de Lausanne ballet competition.
The following year Neal graduated magna cum laude from St. Paul's School and was a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts' Presidential Scholar of the Arts and as a consequence performed at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He subsequently enrolled full-time at SAB and also trained at the Royal Danish Ballet School in Copenhagen, joining NYCB's corps de ballet in 1987. [NYT 1]
Four years later Neal was promoted to soloist and at the end of the 1992–1993 winter season to principal dancer. Neal's farewell performance took place Sunday, June 13, 2010, and consisted of ballets by George Balanchine. [NYT 2]
George Balanchine
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George Balanchine was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer who was one of the most influential 20th-century choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its Artistic Director for more than 35 years. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. He was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently became a noted dance director.
New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946.
Darci Kistler is an American ballerina. She is often said to be the last muse for choreographer George Balanchine.
Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and cultural figure in New York City, noted especially as co-founder of the New York City Ballet. He developed and sustained the company with his organizing ability and fundraising for more than four decades, serving as the company's general director from 1946 to 1989. According to the New York Times, he was "an expert in many fields," organizing art exhibits and lecture tours in the same years.
The Philadelphia Ballet, formerly known as the Pennsylvania Ballet, is Philadelphia's largest ballet company in the United States. As of 2021, Pennsylvania Ballet rebranded to the Philadelphia Ballet. The company's annual local season features six programs of classic favorites and new works, including the Philadelphia holiday tradition, George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™. The company's artistic director is Ángel Corella.
Live from Lincoln Center is a seventeen-time Emmy Award-winning series that has broadcast notable performances from the Lincoln Center in New York City on PBS since 1976. The program airs between six and nine times per season. Episodes of Live from Lincoln Center feature Lincoln Center's resident artistic organizations, most notably the New York Philharmonic. Funding for the series is currently made possible by major grants from the Robert Wood Johnson 1962 Charitable Trust, Thomas H. Lee and Ann Tenenbaum, the Robert and Renee Belfer Family Foundation, the MetLife Foundation, Mercedes T. Bass, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Damian Woetzel is the 7th President of The Juilliard School.
Stars and Stripes is a neoclassical ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to music by John Philip Sousa, orchestrated by Hershy Kay. The ballet was made as a tribute to the United States, Balanchine's adopted country. It premiered on January 17, 1958, at the City Center of Music and Drama, danced by the New York City Ballet. It is dedicated to Fiorello La Guardia, former mayor of New York City. The ballet had been revived by multiple ballet companies, and at different special occasions.
Serenade is a ballet by George Balanchine to Tchaikovsky's 1880 Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48. Serenade is credited as being George Balanchine's first full-length ballet in America. Using the students of his newly formed School of American Ballet, Balanchine choreographed this ballet for an American audience that had not been widely exposed to ballet before. Students of the School of American Ballet gave the first performance on Sunday, 10 June 1934 on the Felix M. Warburg estate in White Plains, N.Y., where Mozartiana had been danced the previous day. It was then presented by the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet on 6 December at the Avery Memorial Theatre of the Wadsworth Atheneum with sets by the painter William Littlefield. Balanchine presented the ballet as his response to the generous sponsorships he received during his immigration to America. The official premiere took place on 1 March 1935 with the American Ballet at the Adelphi Theatre, New York, conducted by Sandor Harmati.
Yvonne Borree is a former principal dancer at New York City Ballet. She was raised in Norfolk, Virginia, where she began her dance studies with the Tidewater Ballet Association at four years of age.
Rachel Rutherford is a former soloist with New York City Ballet.
Tiler Kalyn Peck is an American ballet dancer who is a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. As well as ballet, she has performed in musical theatre shows and has made cameo appearances in films including Donnie Darko and television series including Tiny Pretty Things.
Charles Askegard is an American ballet dancer and ballet master at Pennsylvania Ballet.
Vienna Waltzes is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to music by Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár and Richard Strauss, made as a tribute to Austria. It premiered on June 23, 1977 at the New York State Theater, performed by the New York City Ballet, and was an immediate success among the public.
Who Cares? is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to songs by George Gershwin that were orchestrated by Hershy Kay. The ballet is split in two parts, the first danced by an ensemble, and the second focuses on four principal dancers. Who Cares? premiered on February 5, 1970, at the New York State Theater, danced by the New York City Ballet.
Choreographer George Balanchine's production of Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker has become the most famous stage production of the ballet performed in the U.S. It uses the plot of the Alexandre Dumas, père, version of E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816). Its premiere took place on February 2, 1954, at City Center, New York, with costumes by Karinska and sets by Horace Armistead. It has been staged in New York every year since 1954, and many other productions throughout the United States either imitate it, or directly use the Balanchine staging. However, although it is often cited as being the production that made the ballet famous in the U.S., it was Willam Christensen's 1944 production for the San Francisco Ballet which first introduced the complete work to the United States.
Balanchine technique or Balanchine method is the ballet performance style invented by dancer, choreographer, and teacher George Balanchine (1904–1983), and a trademark of the George Balanchine Foundation. It is used widely today in many of Balanchine's choreographic works. It is employed by ballet companies and taught in schools throughout North America, including the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet, where it first emerged.
Debra Austin is an American ballet dancer who rose to prominence in 1982 when she was promoted to the rank of principal dancer at Pennsylvania Ballet, making her the first African-American female principal dancer of a major American ballet company. She was also the first African-American female dancer at the New York City Ballet. She currently serves as the ballet mistress for the Carolina Ballet.
Divertimento No. 15 is a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to Mozart's eponymous music. The ballet was made for the New York City Ballet. Balanchine first choreographed the score in 1952, for a ballet titled Caracole. In 1956, he planned to revive Caracole for a celebration of Mozart's bicentenary but made a new ballet to the same music instead. Divertimento No. 15 premiered on May 31, 1956, at the American Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, Connecticut.
