Balanchine Revival Skirts City Ballet - Brief Article

A BALANCHINE FESTIVAL at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.-- tentatively scheduled for two as-yet undetermined weeks in September--is being masterminded by the center's dance advisors, Charles and Stephanie Reinhart, in consultation with dance critic and Balanchine authority Nancy Goldner. Companies performing the late master's choreography will likely be Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet plus, perhaps, the Bolshoi with its Suzanne Farrell staging of Mozartiana.

Not, though, the troupe Balanchine co-founded with Lincoln Kirstein--New York City Ballet--because its orchestra contract has a clause requiring the company's own musicians to play whenever it dances within a 250-mile radius of New York, while Kennedy Center, which is about 225 miles away, would have to pay its orchestra not to play. During the festival, more than one ballet company may appear per program. Such added features as roundtables, film and video showings, demonstration classes, and public rehearsals are being considered.

Suzanne Farrell's Masters of the Twentieth Century ensemble, which samples the Balanchine repertory, is not scheduled to perform either--many of its dancers have commitments with other companies.

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