Lauren King
KAY MAZZO and ADAM LUDERS TO COACH SWAN LAKE VARIATIONS and PAS DE DEUX for THE GEORGE BALANCHINE FOUNDATION VIDEO ARCHIVES
On September 16, 2024, in the New York City Ballet studios at the Rose Building, Lincoln Center, former New York City Ballet Principal Dancers Kay Mazzo and Adam Luders coached an iteration of Balanchine’s ideas on Swan Lake for the cameras of the George Balanchine Foundation. Excerpts included the traditional Swan Queen entrance, pas de deux and coda, two male variations created for alternating performances, and, replacing the familiar Swan Queen variation, a dance with the Swan Queen and a corps of four women. Participating dancers included NYCB principal Mira Nadon and soloist Davide Riccardo along with four corps de ballet dancers, Kristen Segin, Claire Von Enck, Baily Jones, and Rommie Tomasini. NYCB rehearsal pianist Elaine Chelton accompanied the session.
Paul Boos, Director of the GBF Video Archives, overseed the filming with Founding Director Nancy Reynolds. The recording concluded with Mazzo and Luders being interviewed by Alastair Macaulay.
The GBF Video Archives document the insights of dancers, often principals from original casts or those who worked closely with Balanchine. The Archives mission is to preserve this knowledge and pass it on to today's dancers, scholars, and audiences. The Archives are available world-wide through public and university libraries, and digitally through the George Balanchine Foundation website for those working in the dance field and using these resources in their work. In addition, the interview components can be accessed on the Balanchine Foundation's YouTube channel.
ADAM LUDERS began his ballet training at the Royal Danish Ballet School and graduated to become a member of the Royal Danish Ballet in 1968. He was a principal dancer with London Festival Ballet (1973–5) and New York City Ballet (1975–94) creating roles in Balanchine's Davidsbündertänze, Kammermusik No. 2, and Walpurgisnacht, as well as Robbins's In Memory of... among others. Since retiring he has taught widely, including at the School of American Ballet, and staged Balanchine repertory for the George Balanchine Trust. Trained in the Bournonville tradition, Luders was the classic ‘danseur noble’. He is part of the last generation of dancers who worked closely with Balanchine at the New York City Ballet and has danced most of the Balanchine and Robbins repertoire. Luders is famous for his skill in pas de deux, and he has partnered most of Balanchine’s ballerinas as well other international stars. For the Interpreters Archive he has coached the first movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet and excerpts from Davidsbündlertänze, Ballade, Kammermusik No. 2, Orpheus and Vienna Waltzes.
KAY MAZZO began her professional career in 1961 with Jerome Robbins's Ballets: USA, where she performed Afternoon of a Faun under Robbins's personal direction. A year later she joined NYCB, becoming principal dancer in 1969. During her nearly twenty-year career with the company, in addition to her appearing extensively in the repertory as a whole, both Balanchine and Robbins created important roles on her--for Robbins, in Dances at a Gathering and In the Night, for Balanchine, in Stravinsky Violin Concerto and perhaps most memorably, in Duo Concertant, among others. After her retirement from performing in 1981 she began teaching at the NYCB-affiliated School of American Ballet (SAB), where she was Chairman of the Faculty between 2018 and 2022. She continues to teach at SAB. With Bart Cook, she coached the "Donkey" pas de deux from A Midsummer Night's Dream for the GBF Video Archives, along with the Terpsichore role in Apollo, Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Duo Concertant.
MIRA NADON, a NYCB principal, began her ballet training in Montclair, California and in 2017, Ms. Nadon became an apprentice with NYCB, rising through the ranks to corps de ballet in 2018, soloist in 2022, and principal in 2023. She has been featured in Balanchine’s Apollo, Errante, Monumentum/Movements, Scotch Symphony, Raymonda Variations and Liebeslieder Walzer as well as ballets by Robbins, Martins and Ratmansky. For the Interpreters Archive video series, she has been coached by Allegra Kent and Bart Cook in Agon pas de deux and by Colleen Neary in Kammermusik No. 2.
DAVIDE RICCARDO is a NYCB soloist. He was born in Messina, Italy and began his dance training there before he transferred to the Rome Opera Ballet School in 2012. Mr. Riccardo joined NYCB, first as an apprentice in 2018 and then as company member in 2019, and was promoted to soloist in 2023. Since joining NYCB he has been featured in ballets by Balanchine, Robbins, Martins, Ratmansky and Peck, among others. For the Interpreters Archive he has been coached by Allegra Kent and Bart Cook in Agon pas de deux and by Adam Luders in the Phlegmatic section of Four Temperaments.
ALASTAIR MACAULAY was formerly Chief Dance Critic for the New York Times and Chief Drama Critic for the Times of London. He has written on a wide range of subjects, not only on classical and modern dance but on Indian dance, opera and other concert-hall music forms, and drama. For the GBF Video Archives, he has interviewed Jacques d'Amboise twice, once on Apollo, later for four works Balanchine created on d'Amboise, and Kay Mazzo, Francia Russell and Suki Schorer for their roles as the three muses in Apollo.
NANCY REYNOLDS is the founding director of the George Balanchine Video Archives. She is a former dancer with New York City Ballet and has been Director of Research for The George Balanchine Foundation since 1994, when she conceived and for over 25 years directed the Video Archives program. Among her books are Repertory in Review: Forty Years of the New York City Ballet, No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century (co-authored with Malcolm McCormick) and Remembering Lincoln. In 2013 she received a “Bessie” Award for “outstanding service to the field of dance.” On camera for the GBF Video Archives, she has conducted interviews with Maria Tallchief, Melissa Hayden, Patricia Wilde, Patricia McBride, Frederic Franklin, Todd Bolender, and Edward Villella, among others.
PAUL BOOS, Director of the Video Archives since 2021, is a former dancer with NYCB and répétiteur for the George Balanchine Trust. His work for the Trust has been presented at a number of theaters, including the Maryinsky, Bolshoi, Paris Opera, La Scala, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Boston Ballet. He is the director of Rye Ballet Conservatory’s pre-pro division as well as a guest teacher abroad and locally.
The George Balanchine Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation established in 1983 with the goal of creating programs that educate the public and further Balanchine’s work and aesthetic. Among the GBF’s major initiatives are the Video Archives, in which dancers who worked closely with Balanchine teach and coach their roles with the dancers of today (Interpreters Archive) or recreate sections of ballets that are rarely performed or in danger of disappearing (Archive of Lost Choreography). Legendary dancers who have taken part in this project include Alicia Alonso, Jacques d’Amboise, Suzanne Farrell, Frederic Franklin, Melissa Hayden, Allegra Kent, Alicia Markova, Patricia McBride, Maria Tallchief, Violette Verdy, Patricia Wilde, Edward Villella, and others, working with dancers from such companies as New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco, Boston, Pacific Northwest and Suzanne Farrell ballets.
In 2007 the Foundation announced a major initiative, the online publication of the Balanchine Catalogue, a fully searchable database giving first-performance details of all known dances created by Balanchine and supplemented by lists of companies staging his ballets, a bibliography, a videography, reference resources, a database of roles Balanchine performed, and related information. The project was made possible by a leadership grant from The Jerome Robbins Foundation. An expanded and updated version, enhanced by visuals, was introduced in June 2022 (www.balanchine.org).
The George Balanchine Foundation expresses its profound gratitude to the following donors: Agnes Gund, Barbara D. Horgan, The New York State Council on the Arts, the Pettit Foundation, Nancy R. Reynolds, and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund; and to Robert Brenner, Leslie Tonner Curtis, The National Endowment for the Arts, Meryl Rosofsky and Stuart H. Coleman, The Evelyn Sharp Foundation, Denise Littlefield Sobel, Resa and Heiner Sussner, and I. Peter Wolff.
