When City Center Was Balanchine's House [View all]

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Jacques d’Amboise, Patricia Wilde, Allegra Kent and Edward Villella talk about the roles they danced at the theater, which is celebrating George Balanchine and its 75th anniversary as a palace of the arts.

'When Lincoln Kirstein and the choreographer George Balanchine were attempting to get a company off the ground in the 1930s and ’40s, they had little more than a pickup troupe, with meager seasons and slender prospects. That began to change in 1948, when the company, the newly named New York City Ballet, found an institution willing to take it in: New York City Center.

The studios had splintery floors. The orchestra pit was cramped. There was practically no backstage space — and the stage itself was small.

“I could do a couple of jumps and be past center stage,” said Jacques d’Amboise. He danced with the company during its City Center years, as did Edward Villella, who lived a brownstone away from the theater. “They used to deliver huge blocks of ice,” Mr. Villella said, “and they would take it into the alley in the back, and that was the air-conditioning.”

Since those early days, the building, a fanciful Moorish-style structure built as a meeting place for the Shriners, a Masonic group, has been updated many times, most recently in 2011. In 1943, it became a temple for the arts, converted for that purpose by the civic-minded mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Tickets were kept affordable. In the ’40s, a prime seat went for $2.40, roughly equivalent to $35 today. . .

s part of a season celebrating the 75th anniversary of the building’s rebirth as a palace of culture, City Center is hosting a ballet festival, “Balanchine: The City Center Years,” from Oct. 31 through Nov. 4. The works included — 13 in all — were either created or performed there during City Ballet’s first decade and a half, 1948-64.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/arts/dance/george-balanchine-new-york-city-center.html?