There was a time when New York City was home to no fewer than three major ballet companies: New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater and the Joffrey Ballet. But you could have been forgiven for thinking there was room for only one great ballet choreographer, George Balanchine.
New York City Ballet had Balanchine, its founding choreographer, who so dominated the aesthetics of ballet in America that all others were measured against him, and usually found wanting. American Ballet Theater was the home of star dancers, often from abroad, like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova and Julio Bocca.
And then there was the Joffrey Ballet, which moved to Chicago in 1995. The Joffrey had Gerald Arpino, who founded the company in 1956 with Robert Joffrey and soon became its resident choreographer. Over five decades he made around 50 ballets, the largest group in the Joffrey’s repertory.
The repertory, of course, had more: early 20th-century ballets, like “The Rite of Spring”; and the first crossover ballet, Twyla Tharp’s “Deuce Coupe,” set to songs by the Beach Boys. But season after season, there was something new by Arpino “to balance out the programs,” Michael Anderson, board president of the Gerald Arpino Foundation, said in a phone interview. “Joffrey trusted him and knew that Gerry would deliver.”
Now, two years after organizing an Arpino centennial celebration in Chicago, the foundation has teamed up with the Joyce Theater to present an Arpino Dance Festival in New York.
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The post Gerald Arpino Brought ‘Zah!’ to Ballet. How Does His Work Hold Up? appeared first on New York Times.
