Release by the company:

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE TO PERFORM AT
LINCOLN CENTER’S AVERY FISHER HALL, OCTOBER 7-10, 2009
Five Site-Specific Performances Planned

American Ballet Theatre has announced plans to perform at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, October 7-10, 2009. The engagement was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie. ABT will give five performances of repertory work uniquely tailored to Avery Fisher’s stage, including World and Company Premieres.

Avery Fisher Hall is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It is home to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Lincoln Center Presents and is one of the world’s most famous concert halls. Designed by architect Max Abramovitz, Avery Fisher Hall was the first venue at Lincoln Center to open in 1962. Originally named Philharmonic Hall, it was renamed in 1973 after Avery Fisher.

“We are thrilled to appear at Avery Fisher Hall and to continue our presence on the Lincoln Center campus,” said Rachel S. Moore, Executive Director of American Ballet Theatre. “These performances offer a wonderful opportunity for audiences to see dance in a new way.”

Commented Reynold Levy, President, Lincoln Center, Inc, “It is most appropriate that one of the world’s leading ballet companies is able to appear in one of the world’s premier halls.”
American Ballet Theatre’s performances at Avery Fisher Hall will be the first for the Company.

This is a very curious announcement. Will ABT not perform at City Center in the fall of 2009? Contract up or something? Avery Fisher is a strange theater to perform a "visual" art. The seats are not as raked as they should be for everybody to see the dancer's feet. The stage is not very deep. The balcony seats are very far away from the stage. There's no pit. If ABT can't perform at City Center for its Fall season, maybe it would be better to perform at BAM or even Juilliard's theater space. I hope we find out the explanation for this, maybe in the NY Times.

In the Times article, it mentioned that CC will be closed for the delayed renovation during 2009.It also mentioned that ABT will have a 3 week fall season in 2008. Could this be a typo error or is ABT extending thier 2008 fall season?

Thanks bringham, I just read the NY Times article. It would be nice if ABT would do something the City Ballet used to do - bring programs of dance to the other boroughs. ABT could perform at BAM, Purchase, Tilles, and either NJPAC or McCarter. ABT used to have a one-week run when NJPAC first opened.

In the ABT News article announcing the Tudor Celebration at City Center during Fall '08

http://abt.org/insideabt/news_display.asp?News_ID=221

a two week schedule at City Center is included.

This article is from April and may no longer be current but if it is still accurate then perhaps ABT will perform 10/21/08 thru
11/02/08 at City Center (just 2 weeks) and a batch of performances at AFH earlier in October. This will give them approximately the same number of Fall performances that they have been putting on during the three week City Center seasons.

Hope this makes sense!!!!

richard53dog, the AFH series is in 2009.

Oh well, so much for reading too quickly!

So I guess for this year we just get ABT for two weeks in the Fall.

I do agree that AFH is an odd venue for dance.

I agree. They are missing a tremendous opportunity for audience building if they don't take the company "on the road" to BAM. It would be perfect for the mixed rep fall season and it would seem that it would be a lot cheaper than renting out AFH.

I'd guess that if ABT looked at the residences of its subscribers it would find many living on Long Island, Brooklyn and New Jersey. I would have done something around that. Look where the company has the most non-Manhattan subscribers and then offer up a special package around them. And then another one around bringing your Manhattan viewers out to BAM or NJPAC or McCarter (I'm picking venues that are easy to get to from the subway or trains - the Tilles is a trek from the Roslyn station).

Of course, we haven't seen the site-specific rep being created, but since the CC season is really the only time NY gets to see the one-act ballets (the Met season featured just one "mixed bill"), it seems a real shame to use AFH.

AFH is a terrible hall for the type of performance it was built to accomodate- orchestral performances. That's why the NY Philharmonic tried its best to strike a deal a few years ago with Carnegie Hall. Unfortunately, that deal fell through. As bad as AFH is for orchestral performances, it must be AWFUL for dance performances. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a dance performance of any kind at AFH. As bad as the sight lines are at City Center, that venue is far superior to AFH for dance.

I wonder if ABT considered, for 2009, a tri-venue season in the manner of Miami City Ballet and LA Ballet. They could do a week at BAM or Tilles, a week at NJPAC, a week at Purchase (just as examples), perhaps even expanding their ticket-buying base. They could pull in out-suburbs for whom a trek to the city is too difficult for something expensive which they are afraid they won't understand. This could introduce them to the company, cultivate new fans. Inconvenient for the company? A little. But I think it could reap big benefits.

In fact, even after the completion of City Center's renovation, they could possibly institute a three-year schedule of visiting each of the suburban venues on a rotating basis. It may be too late to withdraw from the Avery Fisher commitment, but maybe not to add a week or two in the surrounding counties. Just an idea.

Each of those sites caters nicely to geographic audience transportation vectors... The Connecticut & Upstate NY fans would travel easily to Purchase... the Long Island fans to BAM... the NJ & Philadelphian fans to NJPAC... Manhattanites would make the trek to BAM without too much complaint.... Choosing one venue would be a mistake, but hitting all three could possibly increase their audience.

As I wrote above regarding those sites, you can tap into existing subscribers fro those areas. I wonder how many different avenues the company looked into before setting with the one to perform at AFH.