This spring New York City Ballet will present the first annual Dancers’ Choice program, a special evening that each year will be conceived and supervised by one of NYCB’s dancers. NYCB Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins has created the evening as an annual benefit for the Company’s Dancers’ Emergency Fund.
For the inaugural program, which will take place on Friday, June 27 at 8 p.m., Martins has asked Principal Dancer Jonathan Stafford to oversee the evening’s programming and casting, as well as the marketing and promotional efforts.
“No one knows New York City Ballet’s vast repertory better than our wonderful dancers, so I thought that each year we could select one dancer to put together a program, cast it, and present it,” said Martins.
The inaugural evening will mark the first time ever that an NYCB dancer has programmed and cast one of the Company’s performances. The highlight of the evening will be a world premiere ballet by NYCB Soloist Adam Hendrickson, with an original score by NYCB corps de ballet member Aaron Severini.
The evening will also feature works by the four choreographers most closely associated with NYCB – George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, and Christopher Wheeldon – including excerpts from Balanchine’s Jewels, Square Dance, Symphony in C, and Union Jack; Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, Glass Pieces, and Interplay; Martins’ Ecstatic Orange and Beethoven Romance; and Wheeldon’s Mercurial Manoeuvres.
In addition to the ballets, the evening will also include a short film that chronicles the making of the new ballet by Hendrickson and Severini, as well as a montage of film clips of some of NYCB’s dancers when they were just beginning to dance. For the film montage, NYCB dancers Ask la Cour and Henry Seth have created an original score.
To assist him in planning the evening, Stafford has put together a committee of his fellow dancers, which includes Principal Dancer Daniel Ulbricht, Soloist Adam Hendrickson, and corps de ballet member Amanda Hankes. In addition, he has also enlisted a number of dancers to assist in marketing and promotion, including NYCB Soloist Craig Hall, who has designed a logo, poster, and t-shirt for the event, and NYCB corps de ballet member Kyle Froman, who is creating a Dancers’ Choice souvenir program book featuring his photographs of the Company’s dancers.
“When Peter asked me to program this first Dancers’ Choice performance I really wanted to include ballets that I know the dancers love to perform, as well as some ballets that have been out of the repertory for a while, such as Peter’s Beethoven Romance,” said Stafford. “All of the dancers have been really supportive of this evening, and have embraced this opportunity to showcase some other aspects of their many talents.”
The Dancers’ Choice evening will feature special ticket prices of $45 for the Orchestra, First Ring, and Second Ring, and $25 for all other areas of the house. All proceeds from the evening will support NYCB’s Dancers’ Emergency Fund – the brainchild of Jerome Robbins – which was instituted to provide financial resources for NYCB dancers in situations of extraordinary need. Tickets for the Dancers’ Choice program are available through the NYCB website at nycballet.com, through CenterCharge at 212-721-6500, or at the New York State Theater box office.
New York City Ballet’s 2008 spring season, featuring the Jerome Robbins Celebration, continues at the New York State Theater through June 29. For information on any New York City Ballet program, visit nycballet.com, or call 212-870-5570.
