A life time of influences and collaborations

George has a long history and background in this field. Credited as the foremost contemporary choreography in the world of ballet and having revamped and stylized a new ballet form, It only seems natural for George Balanchine to have had have many influences/collaborations during his life time. Influences that guided him towards the artist he became and the achievements he reached. One of Balanchine’s biggest influences/collaborations would be when he meet Boston-born dance connoisseur Lincoln Kristein in 1933. Kirstein had seen George in a performance of Georges’ then established traveling company, “Les Ballets”, with whom he hired Boris Kochnoand as artistic advisor, shared his interest in establishing a school for Ballet in America, to which George found interesting as well. The school and performing company these men created is knows today as The New York City Ballet and is one of the most pristine ballet schools/companies in the world. 

Growing up, George had a great musical influence form his father, a Georgian Composer who taught George to play the piano from a early age. Meanwhile, as a child,  George studied at the St. Petersburg's rigorous Imperial Theater School and later on, the Petrograd Conservatory of Music. It was in 1924 that George meet and was asked to join the company created by the very own, Serge Diaghilev. In the next handful of years George became head choreographer for Diaghliev’s company and really saw him self grow into the artist we all know today. 

 
George is also know to have worked in films along side Lydia Lopokov, to have performed with Tamara Geva, Alexandra Danilova, and Nicholas Efimov. (this was prior to his meeting with Diaghliev’s in 1924). When George had established his first company, “Les Ballets” (as mentioned earlier) he worked with many artist and presented many collaborations. For the company's first-and only-season, he created six new ballets, in collaboration with such leading artistic figures as Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill (The Seven Deadly Sins), artist Pavel Tchelitchew (Errante), and composers Darius Milhaud (Les Songes) and Henri Sauget (Fastes). 

Due to a tragic knee injury that almost ruined Balanchine’s career in 1929, he began to heavily focus on choreographing aside from performing. It now doubt, however, that Mr. Balanchine has and was a huge influence on the world of Ballet and what we see today in performances.   

Mr. Balanchine

George Balanchine was born Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze in St. Petersburg, Russia, on January 22, 1904. He is the son of Meliton and Maria Balanchivadze. George was surrounded by music and artistic influences from a very early age. His father was a composer. Balanchine studied the piano as a child and considered a career in the military, which his mother encouraged. However, at the age of ten, he entered the Imperial Ballet School, where he learned the precise and athletic Russian dancing style.

George Balanchine

In 1921 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music to study piano while continuing work in ballet at the State Academy of Opera and Ballet. He used a group of dancers from the school to present his earliest choreographed works. One of the students was Tamara Gevergeyeva, to which Balanchine married in 1922. She was the first of his four wives, all of whom were dancers.

  The manager of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, discovered Balanchine in 1925 in Paris, France. When Diaghilev's most famous choreographer, Nijinska, left the group, Balanchine took her place. At the age of 21 he became the main choreographer of the most famous ballet company in the world. Balanchine did 10 ballets for Diaghilev, and it was Diaghilev who changed the Russian's name to Balanchine. When Diaghilev died and the company broke up in 1929, Balanchine moved from one company to another until, in 1933, he formed his own company, Les Ballets.

In 1933 Balanchine met Lincoln Kirstein, a young, rich American, who invited him to head the new School of American Ballet in New York City. With the School of American Ballet and later with the New York City Ballet, Balanchine established himself as one of the world's leading classical choreographers. He brought standards of excellence and quality performance to the American ballet culture, which up to that point had been a sad/weak copy of the greater European companies.

Works that Balanchine created, while working at the Metropolitan, would later revolutionize the American classical ballet style, included: Apollo, The Card Party, and The Fairy's Kiss. Balanchine's style proved a bit too daring for the Metropolitan, leading to a conflict that ended the working relationship in 1938. Over the next several years he worked on Broadway shows, films, and two ballets: Ballet Imperial and Concerto Barocco, which were created in 1941 for the American Ballet Caravan.

George Balanchine taking a curtain call following a performance of New York City Ballet.

In 1946 Balanchine established a new company, The Ballet Society. The performance of Balanchine's Orpheus was so successful that his company was invited to establish permanent residence at the New York City Center. So it did and was renamed the New York City Ballet. Finally Balanchine had a school, a company, and a permanent theater. He developed the New York City Ballet into the leading classical company in America and to some critics, in the world. Here he created some of his most enduring works, including his Nutcracker and Agon.

Balanchine died in New York City on April 30, 1983.