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"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva

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City Ballet appoints four-member interim team to oversee artistic operations

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New York City Ballet has announced that a temporary leadership team will oversee the company’s artistic and administrative operations while an independent investigation continues into sexual harassment allegations against current chief Peter Martins.
The four-member interim team includes ballet master and former NYCB dancer Jonathan Stafford, resident choreographer and soloist Justin Peck, and ballet masters Craig Hall and Rebecca Krohn. All four have long-standing ties with the company.

In a statement, NYCB board chairman Charles Scharf said “it was the board’s absolute priority to provide ongoing support and stability for the Company’s extraordinary artists. We are confident that with this interim team, working in collaboration with Executive Director Katherine Brown and the Company’s entire staff of artistic and administrative personnel, NYCB will have the leadership, guidance, and resources it needs to continue to create the unparalleled artistic product that our audiences expect.”

City Ballet announced earlier this week that Martins asked for and was granted a temporary a leave of absence while an independent firm looks into the credibility of an anonymous letter that alleged abuse by the 71-year-old ballet chief. Martins has denied any wrongdoing.

How Lauren Lovette’s new work speaks to the future

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The young choreographer spurns convention for something more authentic

On September 28, two men danced like they’d never done before. It was crisp, elegant and romantic. It was also the first of its kind, according to New York City Ballet, which opened its fall gala with a highly regarded program that featured new works from several established and rising stars.

But the one that caught many people’s attention was a world premiere by Lauren Lovette, a budding choreographer who presented her second original work for NYC Ballet during its fall 2017 fall gala. Her piece, titled Not Our Fate, explored love, race, and in this case, an ostensibly same-sex relationship. The players involved: company members Preston Chamblee and Taylor Stanley.

And it very nearly didn’t happen. As Lovette told the New York Times, “I wanted to find a dancer that had a very liquid quality—a strength but also a dramatic side and a contemporary feel and I wasn’t finding it,” she said. “Then I thought Taylor has that. That’s exactly Taylor. Why can’t I put two guys together?”

Why not indeed.

Lovette’s debut for New York City Ballet is perhaps one example of the generational shift taking place in companies and arts organizations across the world, and its message is clear: convention is dying, whether in matters related to romanticism or the perception that men and women are bound by tradition.

Not everyone is as forward-thinking. Shortly after Lovette’s debut, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky drew heavy criticism for stating on his Facebook page that “sorry, there is no equality in ballet.” He went on to state that women have roles, men have theirs; it’s simply a matter of tradition. But if tradition is what counts, then people like Lovette might not be choreographing at all. That would be a loss for everyone.

NY Times: When two men fall in love on the ballet stage, and why it matters

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Author: Gia Kourlas

“Ballet is slower to change than most art forms, but in the span of just two weeks, New York City Ballet, one of the world’s premier companies, will have shown two ballets featuring significant same-sex duets.”

Read the complete article here

New York City Ballet opens new season with world premiere by Lauren Lovette

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Tonight marks the opening of New York City Ballet’s new season, and with it, the second world premiere by NYCB Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette.
Lovette, a principal with the company since 2015, studied ballet at the Cary Ballet Conservatory in Cary, North Carolina, later attending summer courses at the School of American Ballet in the summers of 2004 and 2005. She enrolled at SAB as a full-time student in 2006, and joined the main company in 2010.

Her piece for the Fall Gala, which coincides with New York Fashion Week, pits Lovette and designers  Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim together for a collaboration that’s as much about style as it is dance.

Lovette began choreographing while a student at SAB where she participated in the School’s Choreography Workshops in 2008 and 2009. In the summer of 2010, Lovette also participated in a working session of the New York Choreographic Institute, and her first work for NYCB, For Clara, was created for the 2016 Fall Gala.

New York City Ballet commissions new work from SAB alumna

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Gianna Reisen, a graduate of the School of American Ballet and currently an apprentice with Ballet Semperoper Dresden, is set to stage her first-ever work for New York City Ballet during the company’s annual Fall Gala, making her the  youngest commissioned choreographer in the company’s long history. 
The 18-year-old Reisen began studying at SAB in 2011 and took part in the School’s Student Choreography workshop in 2015.  She staged a new work as part of the New York Choreographic Institute fall session in 2016, at the recommendation of NYCB artistic director Peter Martins.

Reisen’s world premiere for NYCB features six men and six women, danced to Three American Pieces by Lukas Foss. The twelve-minute piece will be performed alongside works by Lauren Lovette, Justin Peck, Troy Schumacher and Martins at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater on Thursday, September 28. 

Needless to say, Reisen’s in good company.