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December 2, 1998

This week's dancer of the week is another New York City Ballet dancer, Kyra Nichols, the company's senior ballerina, pictured below in Balanchine's Diamonds in a photo by Costas. (This was a DanceView cover in 1993.)

Nichols hasn't won an award this week, or danced in a premiere, but she was the opening night Sugar Plum Fairy of this season's Nutcracker performances--no mean achievement for a dancer of more than twenty years' service--and she's long been the company's backbone. One of the last Balanchine ballerinas, Nichols (as Mary Cargill points out elsewhere on this site) has never had a great role choreographed for her, and became great dancing in roles created for others, a quiet achievement, perhaps, but a very rare one. Her pure, robust technique is in contrast to a sweet and modest stage manner, and she is a Sugar Plum for this, or any, season.

To read more about Kyra Nichols, check out the dancers section at City Ballet's web site (and while you're there, check out the whole web site).

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