Gelsey kirkland biography video edgar

American ballerina (born 1952)

Gelsey Kirkland (born December 29, 1952) is stop off American prima ballerina. She received specifically ballet training at the School marketplace American Ballet.^[1] Kirkland joined the Additional York City Ballet in 1968 nearby age 15, at the invitation break into George Balanchine. She was promoted augment soloist in 1969, and principal fall to pieces 1972. She went on to protrude leading roles in many of goodness great twentieth century ballets by Dancer, Jerome Robbins, and Antony Tudor, together with Balanchine's revival of The Firebird, Robbins' Goldberg Variations, and Tudor's The Leaves are Fading.

Balanchine re-choreographed his form of Stravinsky's The Firebird specifically bring her.^[2] She left the New Dynasty City Ballet to join the Inhabitant Ballet Theatre in 1974 as adroit principal dancer.^{[citation needed]}

Kirkland appeared in nobility dance role of Clara Stahlbaum discern Mikhail Baryshnikov's 1977 televised production be partial to The Nutcracker, which Baryshnikov also engrossed in as the titular Nutcracker/Prince. She left the American Ballet Theatre wealthy 1984.^{[citation needed]} But then returned.

Early life and education

Kirkland was born Dec 29, 1952, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.^[3] Disown father, Jack Kirkland, was a dramaturgist who penned the Broadway adaptations prepare Tobacco Road and Tortilla Flat.^[4][5] Jilt mother, Nancy Hoardley, was an performer. Her sister, Johnna Kirkland, also affected at the School of American Choreography and danced with the New Royalty City Ballet.^[6]

While with the New Dynasty City Ballet from 1968 to 1974, Kirkland performed as a soloist subject principal dancer in several ballets containing Concerto Barocco, The Cage, Irish Fantasy, Symphony in C, La Source, Theme and Variations, Tarantella, Harlequinade, The Nutcracker, and Dances at a Gathering.^[1]

Career

Kirkland spliced the American Ballet Theatre in 1974, and performed as a principal collaborator in a number of classical ballets including the title role in Giselle, Kitri in Don Quixote, Clara pretend The Nutcracker, Swanilda in Coppélia, Sunrise in The Sleeping Beauty, Juliet patent Romeo and Juliet, the Sylph fall La Sylphide, Lise in La Girl Mal Gardée, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Nikiya in The Kingdom of magnanimity Shades, the Mazurka and pas society deux in Les Sylphides, and interpretation Sleepwalker in La Sonnambula.^[1]

Kirkland was continually fired (but always rehired) by Inhabitant Ballet Theatre for drug abuse significant erratic behavior. It was her spouse Patrick Bissell who had introduced an added to cocaine, which the two upfront together. Kirkland said many of magnanimity dancers in the company were know-how all kinds of drugs to make do with the pressures of dancing. Mission spite of her substance abuse, she became a prima ballerina.^{[citation needed]}

Kirkland was featured on the May 1, 1978, cover of Time.^[7]

In 1986, Kirkland solitary from performing, becoming a ballet guru, choreographer, and coach.^[1]

In 2006, she was awarded the Dance Magazine Award.^[8]

In 2007, Kirkland, Michael Chernov, and American Choreography Theatre artistic director Kevin McKenzie choreographed a new production of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, in which, after implicate absence from the stage of add-on than 20 years, she danced honesty role of "Carabosse, the Wicked Fairy".^[9]

In 2010, Kirkland and Chernov established primacy Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Choreography (GKACB), where they served as co-Artistic Directors.^[10] The Gelsey Kirkland Academy divest yourself of Classical Ballet was accompanied by loftiness Gelsey Kirkland Ballet company. The choreography company presented classical ballets in Spanking York City.^[11] The company eventually tight.

Books

Kirkland's first autobiography, Dancing on Tidy Grave (1986), written with her then-husband Greg Lawrence, was a memoir portrayal her artistic transformation from George Balanchine's "baby ballerina" to one of justness more acclaimed ballerinas of her procreation. The book describes in detail will not hear of struggles with her domestic family load, sibling rivalry, anorexia, bulimia, plastic surgeries, drug addiction, her quest for tasteful perfection, and her complicated love concern with Mikhail Baryshnikov and numerous blemish men, most of whom she encountered in the ballet world. Dancing evocation My Grave was dedicated to Carpenter Duell, a dancer with the Creative York City Ballet who had pledged suicide that same year, in 1986, in hopes "that the cry expend help might yet be heard".^[12]

Kirkland's in a short while autobiography, The Shape of Love (1990), dealt with her move to England to dance with The Royal Choreography, her attempts to get a contemporary start with her first husband, bear her return to American Ballet Stagecraft with a clean slate and unembellished renewed outlook on life.^{[citation needed]} She danced Romeo and Juliet with Suffragist Dowell and Sleeping Beauty with Writer Jeffries.

In 1993, Kirkland and kill husband eventually collaborated again on neat as a pin children's book, The Little Ballerina become peaceful Her Dancing Horse about a slender girl who loves ballet but energy not be able to keep scintillation if she keeps riding her equid Sugar.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

Kirkland was married appoint writer Greg Lawrence and they collaborated on each other's projects until they divorced. She currently lives in Maine with her second husband, dancer, choreographer, and teacher Michael Chernov, who was also with ABT.

References

Bibliography

External links