Suzanne Farrell Ballet Plans to Close After 2017-18 Season

Suzanne Farrell leading a rehearsal of George Balanchine’s “Diamonds” in 2011. Credit Linda Spillers for The New York Times

Article Courtesy of New York Times

The School of Dance professor, Suzanne Farrell of the The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, a company known for keeping the legacy and choreography of George Balanchine alive at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, plans to close after the 2017-18 season, officials said Wednesday.

“I am very proud of what I have been able to do with my company over the past 15 years,” Ms. Farrell, 71, said in a statement. She added: “I love to teach, have always evolved as an artist and I live in the now.”

Photo credit: Paul Kolnik

The company, which has performed annually at the Kennedy Center since 2001 and toured extensively, will close, and Ms. Farrell, its artistic director, will take on a new role as a teaching artist with the Kennedy Center, which plans to add more dance studios as part of an expansion that is scheduled to open in 2018. Ms. Farrell has begun informing her dancers.

The company was led by Ms. Farrell, an important muse of the great choreographer George Balanchine when she danced for him at New York City Ballet. It performed 65 ballets by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Maurice Béjart, and played a major role in preserving the Balanchine tradition.

By becoming a teaching artist again, Ms. Farrell will be returning to her roots at the Kennedy Center. She first led a master class for local ballet students there in 1993.