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Ballet Alert Quiz Number 15
Joffrey Ballet
November 30, 1998

1. The current embodiment of the Joffrey Ballet is headquartered in what city?

Chicago

2. The Joffrey Ballet maintained the largest repertoire outside the United Kingdom of the works of what English choreographer?

Frederick Ashton

3.   Robert Joffrey was very proud of his "Diaghilev collection," a repertoire of works revived from that of the Diaghilev Ballet Russe .  Name three Diaghilev ballets in this "collection."

Le Tricorne, Petrouchka, Parade, Pulcinella, Le Spectre de la Rose, L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune, Le Sacre du Printemps

4.  Joffrey was a choreographer as well as a company director.  His "signature" ballet, Pas de Deeses, was loosely based on a famous lithograph showing a scene from what 19th century Romantic ballet by Jules Perrot?

Le Judgment de Paris

5.  Who was the first Sugar Plum Fairy in Joffrey's production of The Nutcracker?

Leslie Caruthers

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Ballet Alert Quiz Number 16
French Composers and Choreographers
(a Quiz by Estelle Souche)

1) In 1968, George Balanchine used some music
from Leo Delibes' "La Source" in his ballet with the same title. In 1925, the French choreographer Leo Staats had already made a ballet on some music from "La Source"; what was the title of this earlier ballet by Staats?

Soir de Fete

2) Mozart made the music of a ballet choreographed
by Noverre and premiered in 1778 by the Paris Opera.
What was its title?

Les Petits Riens

3) Marseille was the birthplace of two choreographers who both had great careers outside of France. The first one was born there in 1818, danced in Bordeaux and Madrid, and became later the ballet master in chief of the ballet of Saint-Petersburg until 1903. The second one was born there around 1927, and later created a very successful company in Brussels; he now leads a company in Switzerland. Name these choreographers.

Marius Petipa and Maurice Bejart

4) Leo Delibes composed the scores of two very successful ballets which received their premieres at the Paris Opera in 1870 and 1876. What were their titles, and the names of the choreographers?

Coppélia; chor: Arthur de Saint-Léon
Sylvie; chor: Louis Mérante

5) This French choreographer, born in 1767 in Stockholm, studied with Dauberval and Noverre, was the dancing partner of Marie-Madeleine Guimard at the Paris Opera around 1790. In 1801, he became a ballet master, choreographer and teacher in Saint-Petersburg at the Imperial Theater, and reorganized the system of dance teaching there.

Charles Didelot

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Ballet Alert Quiz Number 17
American Ballet Theatre Quiz No. 2
(a Quiz by Steve Keeley)

1. In 1967 ABT got its first full-length Swan Lake, staged by David Blair. Who were the first Odette/Odile and Prince in this production when it
premiered at the Civic Opera House, Chicago, Illinois on Feb. 2?

Nadia Nerina and Royes Fernandez.

2. Film producer/director/choreographer Herbert Ross ("The Turning Point"; Dancers"; "Footloose") was a resident choreographer with ABT during the early 50's. In 1950 ABT acquired a ballet Ross had done for a choreography workshop, which evoked the Spanish Inquisition filtered through the art of the painter Francisco Goya. Name that ballet (danced to Bela Bartok's "Contrasts for Piano, Clarinet and Violin")

Caprichos

3. ABT's first performance was on January 11, 1940. (It was then known simply as "Ballet Theater".) What works were on the program and who were the choreographers?

Les Sylphides/chor. by Michel Fokine
Voices of Spring/chor. by Mikhail Mordkin
The Great American Goof/chor. by Eugene Loring

4. All in the Family, part 1: ABT has (at least) two husband-wife pairs in it's current company. One couple, both born in Kiev, Ukraine are soloists; another couple is American, a principal dancer born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and a soloist born in Lafayette, Louisiana. Who are these couples?

Irina Dvorovenko & Maxim Belotserkovsky
Amanda McKerrow & John Gardner

5. All in the Family, part II: One of ABT's stars from the 50's, 60's and early 70's, this South American-born (Santiago, Chile; 1930) ballerina has a
daughter who is now a soloist with the company. Name the mother and daughter.

Lupe Serrano and Veronica Lynn