The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
announces
2003 National Tour of


TOUR INCLUDES WEST COAST PREMIERE OF THE COMPANY WITH ENGAGEMENTS IN LOS ANGELES, BERKLEY, TUCSON, AND SANTA FE, AMONG OTHERS

TOUR CULMINATES WITH A WEEK-LONG ENGAGEMENT AT
THE KENNEDY CENTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Three Programs of All Balanchine Repertory to Include
The Company Premieres of Mozartiana, Serenade, and Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, plus a Program of Duets Exploring the Dynamic Between Woman and Man in The Balanchine Couple all Set and Coached by the legendary Suzanne Farrell
.

Washington, D.C. -- The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces the 2003 national tour of The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, (Suzanne Farrell, Artistic Director), with performances coast-to-coast October 5-December 7, 2003. In addition to the West Coast premiere of the company, highlights of the tour will include the company premieres of Mozartiana, Serenade, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and “Waltz of the Flowers” from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, plus a program of duets exploring the dynamics between woman and man in The Balanchine Couple. The tour begins October 5 at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, and culminates in a week-long engagement at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater beginning December 2, 2003.

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet had its beginning in the fall of 1999, when Ms. Farrell presented the Kennedy Center special production for the Millennium Season, Suzanne Farrell Stages the Masters of 20th Century Ballet. In the fall of 2000, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, now a full-fledged company and an ongoing project of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, made its debut during the Kennedy Center’s Balanchine Celebration. The company has since presented an east-coast tour, performances in residence at Florida State University – where Ms. Farrell is a professor in the department of dance – and two full seasons at the Kennedy Center. The Wall Street Journal has called the company “luminous and majestic” while The Washington Post called their performance “fresh and alive.”
The 2003, 16-city nationwide tour will take The Suzanne Farrell Ballet from the East to the South, to the Midwest and West in three programs of all Balanchine repertory.

Principal dancers with the company are Jennifer Fournier, Chan Hon Goh, Natalia Magnicaballi, Peter Boal, and Runqiao Du. Soloists are April Ball, Frances Katzen, Shannon Parsley, Bonnie Pickard, Momchil Mladenov, and Jared Redick. Other company members include Gina Artese, Amy Brandt, Amy Cole, Kristen Gallagher, Elisabeth Holowchuk, Katelyn Prominski, Lisa Reneau, Mariaelena Ruiz, Jenny Sandler, Amy Seawright, Cheryl Sladkin, Meaghan Spedden, Lydia Walker, Bill Biondolino, Ryan Kelly, Benjamin Lester, Eric Ragan, Alexander Ritter, and Stephen Straub. Company apprentices are Celeste Birr-Gucanac, Ilona Wall, and Alexandra Wasell. (Not all company members will perform in all tour stops.) Ron Matson is the Musical Director and Conductor; Holly Hynes is the Costume Designer; Russell Sandifer is the Lighting Designer.

Support for The Suzanne Farrell Ballet is provided by the Cordelia Corporation, Mr. Ted P. Shen, Ms. Maxine Groffsky and Mr. Winthrop Knowlton, Mr. Jack Reed, and Mr. and Mrs. James D. Wolfensohn.

The Kennedy Center Ballet series is sponsored by Altira.

For more information about The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, please visit
www.suzannefarrellballet.org

For more information about the Kennedy Center, please visit our Web site at
www.kennedy-center.org

TOUR SCHEDULE AND REPERTORY INFORMATION IS ATTACHED


2003 National Tour of


October 5 (Su) 4 pm, McCarter Theater ( program A) Princeton, NJ

October 7 (T) 7:30pm, Haas Center (program A) Bloomsburg, PA

October 9 ® 8pm, Opera House (program A) Wilmington, DE

October 11 (Sa) 8pm, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (program A Newark, NJ

October 12 (Su) 2pm, Brooklyn College (program A) Brooklyn, NY

October 17 & 18 (F/Sa) Times TBA, Florida State University (programs A and B) Tallahassee, FL

October 28 (T) 8pm, Morris Performing Arts Center (program B+) South Bend, IN

October 30 ® 7:30pm, Wharton Center (program B+) East Lansing, MI

October 31 (F) 7:30pm, Power Center (program B) Ann Arbor, MI

November 4 (T) 7:30pm, Centennial Hall (program B+) Tucson, AZ

November 7 & 8 (F/Sa) 7:30pm, Royce Hall (program A) Los Angeles, CA

November 12 (W) 8pm, Christopher Cohan Center (program B+) San Luis Obispo, CA

November 14 & 15 (F/Sa) 8pm, Zellerbach Hall (program B+) Berkeley, CA

November 16 (Su) 8pm, Flint Center (program A) Cupertino, CA

November 21 (F/Sa) 8pm, Lensic Performing Arts Center (program A/B+) Santa Fe, NM

December 2-7 (T-Su) Performances, Eisenhower Theater (program B/C) Washington, DC

Program A - Divertimento No. 15, Variations for Orchestra, Tzigane, and Chaconne

Program B Mozartiana, “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Serenade

Program B+- Divertimento No. 15, “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Serenade

Program C – “The Balanchine Couple”
- Pas de Deux from Apollo
- Pas de Deux from La Sonambula
- Pas de Deux from La Valse
- “The Unanswered Question” from Ivesiana
- Pas de Deux from Agon
- Mediation
- Divertissement from Don Quixote
- Second Pas de Deux from Chaconne
- Pas de Deux and Finale from Stars and Stripes


PROGRAMMING, DANCERS, AND DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

It's great to have all the information in one place. Thanks, Alexandra. Wonderful to see Alexander Ritter's name among the dancers and BA member Jack Reed among the supporters. It's all tremendously exciting.

Yes, thank you for the information. Now, here's my question what does "B + -" mean? Plus or minus Divertimento 15?

BW, I saw the designation "B+" as a way of saying that except for the opening ballet (Mozartiana/Divert), the program is the same. It avoids the confusion of giving programs that are 75% the same totally different names. ( :shhh: Yes, I know, actually less than 75%, because the opening ballets are the longest pieces on each program by a significant amount.)

Is program B also progam B) ?

search by remember a "driver"Quick[B][COLOR=purple][COLOR=purple]
I did a "quick" search to see where some of these dancer come from: remember this is by no means PERFECT
Fournier and Goh are from the National ballet of Canada
Magnicaballi-Ballet Arizona
Boal- NYCB
Du- Washington Ballet
Ball and Redick- Boston
Brandt - was with Milwaukee
Gallagher- Richmond
Holowchuk- recent SAB graduate
Wall- Ballet Austin
Sladkin- Washington

Like I said this was a quick search by a driver of a dancer.....corrections or additions Please!!!

Meaghan Spedden was at SAB this past year; danced in the Workshop 2003.

To add to the list.......Lydia Walker came from Pennsylvania Ballet II and SAB

Meaghan Spedden was also an apprentice with the Farrell Ballet during the 2002 Kennedy Center season.

It should be noted that many dancers on the roster, including the five principals, are veterans of the Farrell Ballet. I may be leaving some out, but they include: Shannon Parsley, Bonnie Pickard, Momchil Mladenov, Kristen Gallagher, Elizabeth Holowchuk, Katelyn Prominski, Mariaelena Ruiz, Amy Seawright, Bill Biondolino, Eric Ragan and Stephen Straub. Ryan Kelly is a former member of NYCB.

I have to admit, I'm a little annoyed that I won't be able to see the more interesting programs, which I consider to be B, B+ and C. I guess I have to go to D.C.

:nopity: Me, too, Dale. Either that, or you and I can cry on each other's shoulders.

Yay, Road Trip!!!

Ben Lester danced at PNB.

Living in the ballet hinterlands as I do, I'll go see Balanchine danced whenever
I can. But does anyone else think "The Balanchine Couple" sounds like too much of a good thing, like eating a whole box of chocolates? How can you savor anyone one excerpt? I guess programs with titles like Stars of International Ballet, that consist of many little pieces, do sell, but from the reviews they sound about as satisfying as that whole box of chocolates. Of course another way of asking this question might be, does Suzanne Farrell likely know what she's doing? To which I must reply, "duhhhhh."

I admit to being prejudiced, but the Balanchine Couple doesn't sound like a box of chocolates to me. It's not as though we're getting pas de deux from Corsaire, Bayadere, the Petipa Don Q, and Swan Lake. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld said in another context.) There's great diversity in these Balanchine excerpts, and I expect their juxtaposition will be illuminating, even to the most knowledgeable among us. Suzanne Farrell knows what she's doing.

If mere anticipation isn't enough fun, here's a promo video clip: Go to http://www.calpolyarts.org/asps/AllPerform...ms.asp#Event659, scroll about 40% of the way down the page until you spot two of Farrell's dancers (Jennifer Chipman and Kirsten Bloom in "Movements for Piano and Orchestra" in Paul Kolnik's photo), and then click on the video link at the left. It runs about 10 or 15 seconds at most.

This would be a nice souvenir, but a Mac expert I know tried to save it and could not, so it may be available only at the website and until the performance. If others have better luck saving this, let's hear about it, and about how you did it!

[Edited on Sep 6, 2003 to correct the anchor, among other things. (The link now works.) Apologies to readers of my previous hasty, sloppy post, and thanks to BW for getting my attention about it!]

Jack, copy or no copy - it didn't work for me. Any chance you might try again?

I'm inclined to agree with kfw, there can be too much of a good thing. I do tend to find programs that are top-heavy with pas de deux, even terrific pas de deux, a little overwhelming. Let us hope Miss F. proves me wrong on this occasion.

BW (and anyone else), would you like to have another look at my post above? It's now more like what it should have been in the first place, and in the meantime I've been able to identify the two dancers as well. In other words, I think it's up to regular BA standards!

I may possibly have some extra tickets for Princeton,NJ on October 5th.

Thanks Jack, it's nice to see the clip - and that's the closest I've come to seeing Apollo, yet. :rolleyes:

Shannon Parsley (who could forget a name like that) is in the Boston Ballet corps (or, at least she was last season).