The Joffrey Ballet is a professional dance company resident in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The company regularly performs both classical ballets, including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, and modern dance pieces. Many choreographers have worked with the Joffrey, including Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, George Balanchine, and founders Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey. Founded as a touring company in 1956, it was based in New York City until 1995 when it moved to Chicago. The company's headquarters and dance academy are in Joffrey Tower, and it performs its September–May season at the Auditorium Theatre. In 2020 the company will move its presentation venue to the Civic Opera House through an arrangement with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Robert Joffrey was an American dancer, teacher, producer, choreographer, and co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet, known for his highly imaginative modern ballets. He was born Anver Bey Abdullah Jaffa Khan in Seattle, Washington to a Pashtun father from Afghanistan and a mother from Italy.
The Boston Ballet is an American professional classical ballet company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company, founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams, and Sydney Leonard, was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. Boston Ballet’s national and international reputation developed under the leadership of Artistic Directors Violette Verdy (1980–1984), Bruce Marks (1985–1997), and Anna-Marie Holmes (1997–2000). Today, Boston Ballet is one of the major ballet companies in North America and among the top companies in the world. Current Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen was selected to lead Boston Ballet in September 2001. Under his artistic direction, Boston Ballet maintains an internationally recognized repertoire of classical, neo-classical and contemporary works, ranging from full-length story ballets to masterworks by George Balanchine, to new works and world premieres by contemporary choreographers. Nissinen leads the company, and Boston Ballet School, the largest ballet school in North America, with Executive Director Meredith (Max) Hodges.
Gerald Arpino was an American dancer and choreographer. He was co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet and succeeded Robert Joffrey as its artistic director in 1988.
Natalia Romanovna Makarova is a Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina and choreographer. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that "her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation in the West."
Stuttgart Ballet is a leading German ballet company. Dating back to 1609, then the court ballet of the dukes of Württemberg, the modern company was founded by John Cranko and is known for full-length narrative ballets. The company received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 1981.
The Joffrey Tower is a high-rise commercial real estate development on the northeast corner of North State Street and East Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States that is the permanent home of the Joffrey Ballet. It is located immediately south of the Chicago Theatre and directly across the street from Macy's largest Chicago department store on State Street, within the Loop Retail Historic District. Its address had once been the site of the Chicago Masonic Temple. The placement of the Joffrey Ballet in this building appears to have involved political dealings with the Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley and his brother, William M. Daley, a co-chairman of the Joffrey board of trustees. The building was scheduled for completion in December 2007, but was not finished until September 12, 2008.
John Neumeier is an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of Hamburg Ballet since 1973. Five years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school for students. In 1996, Neumeier was made ballet director of Hamburg State Opera.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) is an American contemporary dance company. It comprises eleven classically trained dancers.
Helgi Tomasson is artistic director and principal choreographer for San Francisco Ballet, and a former professional ballet dancer. Since assuming leadership of San Francisco Ballet, he has helped transform the company from a respected regional troupe to one of the world's great classical ballet companies. He is originally from Iceland.
Ann Marie DeAngelo is an American choreographer, director, producer, teacher, consultant and former dancer - an expert in all areas of dance. She was leading ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet, where early on she was pegged by TIME magazine as "one of America's most outstanding ballerinas" and where she later served as associate director at the time of the company's move to Chicago, Illinois in 1995. DeAngelo was the founding artistic director of Mexico's Ballet de Monterrey, and served as artistic director of Ballet Omaha during the 1990s. She founded her own experimental troupe in the late 1980s called Ballet D’Angelo, creating several full-evening productions, which toured extensively in Europe.
Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze” is one of the last major works made by New York City Ballet's founding choreographer and balletmaster-in-chief George Balanchine. It is set to Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837). The idea for setting this piano work very likely came from a work created by Robert Joffrey for his own Joffrey Ballet Company, the premier of which took place at the City Center Theater in the late 1970s. Joffrey, in turn, received his inspiration from Jonathan Watts, a protege of Joffrey's and director of the Joffrey apprentice company, who, at the suggestion of pianist Neil Stannard, created a ballet titled Evening Dialogues to this same score. This initial version of the Schumann cycle was featured on tour with the Joffrey second company in the mid 1970a.
Alfonso Catá was a Cuban ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, and company director, active in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and France.
Bruce Marks is an American dancer, performing both in ballet and modern dance. He continues to work as a choreographer, coach and teacher and is a tireless advocate for the art form.
The New York International Ballet Competition (NYIBC), was a program providing dance education and employment opportunities for young dancers ages 17 to 24. In 1983 Ilona Copen founded NYIBC, with Igor Youskevitch as first artistic director, in order to fill a void and satisfy a need in the global dance ecosystem. Other international ballet competitions existed, but New York City, considered a dance capital of the world, did not have its own.
Romeo and Juliet is a 2008 ballet choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Pastor's three-act version is set to the same score used in the Prokofiev version of the ballet. The libretto is by Pastor and Willem Bruls.
Ray Barra is an American former ballet dancer, a ballet master and ballet director. He was a soloist with the American Ballet Theatre and a principal dancer of the Stuttgart Ballet, where he created parts in creations by John Cranko, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet with Marcia Haydée as Julia. After retiring from the stage due to an injury, he worked as a ballet master with the Berlin State Ballet, the ballet of the Frankfurt Opera, the Hamburg Ballet and the Spanish National Dance Company.
Maia Wilkins is an American ballerina. She was a principal dancer for the Joffrey Ballet from 1991 until 2008. She currently the principal of Sacramento Ballet. She used to teach ballet and re-stages Joffrey and Arpino works for the Arpino Foundation.
