Suzanne Farrell Ballet

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet is a ballet company at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., founded in 2000 by Suzanne Farrell, one of George Balanchine's most celebrated ballerinas, and a former New York City Ballet principal dancer. Today, the ballet is a full-fledged company produced by the Kennedy Center. It made its debut in the fall of 1999 during the Kennedy Center's "Balanchine Celebration", performing "Divertimento No. 15".

In 1993 and 1994, the Kennedy Center offered two series of ballet master classes for students with Farrell. In 1995, the Center expanded the program to a national level. This three weeks long yearly initiative of intense study grew into a full-fledged program, "Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell". Students from the "Exploring Ballet" program have started to join the ranks of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

In the fall of 1999, Ms. Farrell received critical acclaim for the successful Kennedy Center engagement and East Coast tour of "Suzanne Farrell Stages the Masters of 20th Century Ballet". Following the Kennedy Center's debut, the newly named "Suzanne Farrell Ballet", a group of professional dancers hand selected by Ms. Farrell, has since performed at the Kennedy Center during engagements in 2001 and 2002, been on an extensive East Coast tour, and returned to the Kennedy Center as part of the 2003-2004 Ballet Season following a 7-week national tour.

The company performed Balanchine's "Don Quixote" as part of the Kennedy Center's 2004-2005 Ballet Season, the ballet's first performance in twenty-five years.

Prior to a northeast tour, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet opened the Kennedy Center's ballet season in the fall of 2001 with nearly two weeks of performances in the Eisenhower Theater - featuring no less than six company premieres. The company was again seen at the Kennedy Center in the fall of 2002, performing, among other works, company premieres of Balanchine's "Chaconne", "Raymonda Variations", "Who Cares?", and Canadian choreographer Anthony Morgan's "A Farewell to Music".

Following an extensive Fall 2003 U.S. tour that, for the first time, took them to the West Coast, the company opened the Kennedy Center's 2003-2004 ballet season with a full week of performances in the Eisenhower Theater. The week included performances of "Mozartiana", "Serenade", Tchaikovsky's "Pas de Deux" and "Tempo di Vals" from George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker", as part of the 2003 Kennedy Center Tchaikovsky Festival, plus The Balanchine Couple. In June 2005 the company collaborated with the National Ballet of Canada to present the first staging of Balanchine's Don Quixote in more than 25 years. The evening-length ballet was created by George Balanchine specifically for Suzanne Farrell.

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet kicked off the 2005-2006 ballet season at the Kennedy Center with an all Balanchine program featuring "Duo Concertant", "La Source", "La Valse" and the "Contrapuntal Blues pas de deux" from "Clarinade". In the summer of 2006 the company performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival as well as at the Edinburgh International Festival with the European premiere of Balanchine's Don Quixote.

The company returns to the Kennedy Center Opera House in June 2007 with two programs, which include Balanchine's "Scotch Symphony" (Mendelssohn), "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" (Rodgers, orch. Kay), and "Mozartiana" (Tchaikovsky), and Béjart's "Scène d'amour" from "Romeo and Juliet" (Berlioz), as well as the Washington, D.C. premieres of two newly re-staged works which have not been seen in forty years: Balanchine's "Divertimento Brillante" (Glinka) and the "Adagio" from "Concierto de Mozart" (Balanchine).

External links

* [http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/ The Suzanne Farrell Ballet]
* [http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/farrell/ Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell]