Kevin McKenzie

American Ballet Theatre: Together Tonight – an 80th Anniversary YouTube celebration

11 May 2020 by gramilano Leave a Comment

May 2020 was to have been a special month for the American Ballet Theatre – the time to celebrate its 80th anniversary.

American Ballet Theatre – known as Ballet Theatre from 1939 until 1957 – was founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant and its first performance was on 11 January 1940.

Chase was its director, together with Oliver Smith, from 1945 to 1980. Mikhail Baryshnikov took over until 1989. Smith returned with Jane Hermann from 1990 to 1992, when Kevin McKenzie took over as artistic director, a position her still holds.

ABT will present American Ballet Theatre: Together Tonight, a virtual celebration in support of the ABT Crisis Relief Fund on its YouTube Channel…

ABT dancer who hauled a homeless man off the subway tracks is awarded the New York State Liberty Medal

26 October 2017 by gramilano Leave a Comment

American Ballet Theatre dancer Gray Davis has been awarded the New York State Liberty Medal. It is the highest civilian honour bestowed by a Member of the New York State Senate. The medal is in recognition of Davis’s daring rescue of a 58-year-old homeless man who had been pushed onto the subway tracks on 3 June 2017. […]

Herman Cornejo answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition

20 May 2015 by gramilano Leave a Comment

Q&A When did you start dancing? I was 8 years old. It was a normal day when my sister’s teacher, Wasil Tupin, saw me at the door. I was enjoying the music and watching my sister dance to the rhythm, and he invited me to come to class the next day. Why did you start dancing? […]

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev’s presence scuppers the Mikhailovsky’s New York plans

10 February 2012 by gramilano 3 Comments

The Mikhailovsky Theater scored a coup last fall by luring Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev from the Bolshoi, and it was to have brought them to the United States this summer for a run of shows at Lincoln Center, said Arts Beat. Now those plans have been scrapped because American Ballet Theater has exercised a no-compete clause involving […]

Who is Rothbart? An evil Mephistopheles or “a large lump of diseased moss”?

8 July 2011 by gramilano 1 Comment

Swan Lake’s Rothbart is an extraordinary important character; his power and evilness must be believable if we are to empathise with poor Odette. Yet often the role is almost laughable in its insignificance or its hammy “baddie” acting with lots of cape swishing. The La Scala production for a few years – the Vladimir Bourmeister choreography with Roberta Guidi di Bagno’s dreary sets […]

Play Misty for me – Prince borrows ABT ballerina Misty Copeland

9 May 2011 by gramilano Leave a Comment

The American Ballet Theatre hired Misty Copeland when she was just 18. I had never, ever, thought, I’m black, and no one else looks like me. At ABT, I realized, Oh, I do have this other thing that could work against me or for me. I always thought my talent would take me as far as […]