George Balanchine was a renowned Georgian-American ballet dancer and one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century. He is often regarded as the founder of American ballet and led the New York City Ballet for over three decades.
Born Georgy Melitonovich Balanchivadze, the son of a notable Georgian composer, Balanchine began studying piano with his father at the age of five. In 1913, he was admitted to the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, where he made his stage debut as Cupid in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty" in 1914.
Balanchine graduated as a classic ballet dancer in 1921 and also studied piano and composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. From 1921-1924, he danced with the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Petrograd, later known as St. Petersburg.
In 1924, Balanchine emigrated from Russia with his first wife, Tamara Geva, and was hired by impresario Sergei Diaghilev as a dancer. However, a knee injury forced him to quit dancing, and Diaghilev employed him as a choreographer. Balanchine created nine major ballets, including "L'Enfant et les Sortileges" by Maurice Ravel and "Apollon Musagete" and "Le Chant du Rossignol" by Igor Stravinsky.
After Diaghilev's death, Balanchine had a few uncertain years, during which he played a cameo role in the film "Dark Red Roses" and choreographed ballets for the Royal Danish Ballet and Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
In 1933, Balanchine formed "Les Ballets" with Boris Kochno and collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil. He met Lincoln Kirstein, who invited him to start a ballet company in New York, and Balanchine co-founded the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet.
Balanchine took his dancers to Hollywood, where he promoted his second wife, Vera Zorina, to several leading roles and worked as a ballet choreographer in several films. In 1946, he and Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, which was renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948.
Throughout his career, Balanchine choreographed numerous ballets, including "The Nutcracker," and collaborated with many notable artists, including Igor Stravinsky, Pavel Tchelitchev, and Cecil Beaton. He died on April 30, 1983, and was laid to rest in Oakland Cemetery, Sag Harbor, New York.
