“We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts.”
Prodigious in his output, choreographing hundreds of ballets as well as works for Broadway, Hollywood, television and vaudeville, Balanchine revolutionized the way dance was taught in America with the founding of his school and company, changing the style and look of ballet and opening the eyes and ears of audiences to the marriage of music and dance.
![Balanchine, eyes looking left, in full costume, hair and makeup for Don Quixote](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.6157d1a0-4837-0133-bce9-00505686a51c.001.w.jpg)
![George Balanchine teaching company class, dancers at the barre in attitude front looking under their raised arm](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.3d064630-445f-0138-dfd7-19b469f983a9.001.w.jpg)
As artistic director of the New York City Ballet and its predecessor companies, Balanchine supervised rehearsals and performances and was an active collaborator in the creation of the music, set design, costumes, hair and makeup, props and lighting.
![Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine with dancers from the New York City Ballet in costume behind them on the Lincoln Center plaza](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.a15fcc10-30bd-0138-aba8-2b98fd4a4ea9.001.w-e1636574770711.jpg)
Founded in 1934, Balanchine’s School of American Ballet focuses on a streamlined and clarified classical style that revolutionized dance and is still taught today.
![Dancers en pointe at the barre, one arm up](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.3382d800-d80e-0137-d0e8-21b150d71380.001.w-e1636476581379.jpg)
Photograph by Frederick Melton, 1953, courtesy of the New York Public Library
![George Balanchine rehearsing a young Jean-Pierre Frolich and Judith Fugate](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/George-Balanchine-and-ballerina-children-e1630690139453.jpg)
![George Balanchine, holding one knee in the air and gesturing, with the cast of Cabin in the Sky laughing around him](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/CabinintheSky-e1641240569574.png)
Balanchine set pieces for opera, Hollywood, Broadway, the circus, television and British vaudeville, bringing his choreography to a wider audience whom he loved to entertain, successfully blurring the lines between the artistic and the commercial in dance.
![Balanchine standing paintbrush in hand in front of a cabinet he designed and painted](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.c848a7e0-662c-0138-7151-0f6e3e636e7e.001.w.jpg)
Balanchine was a man of many talents outside the theater. Among his favorite divertissements were music, painting, carpentry and cooking. He could produce a piano reduction for a symphony as easily as a lavish Russian Easter buffet, and was lauded for both.
![Balanchine sitting playing the piano at home with cat watching](https://balanchine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/nypl.digitalcollections.414603b0-b8c9-0134-2a80-00505686a51c.001.w.jpg)