John Taras
Encyclopedia
John Taras was a prominent American balletmaster and choreographer. Born on the Lower East Side of New York City to Ukrainian parents, he was sent at age 16 to study ballet with Michel Fokine
, Anatole Vilzak and Ludmila Shollar, and later to the School of American Ballet
. He first appeared professionally with Opera on Tour for which Fokine arranged dance.
He performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair
with Ballet Caravan at the Ford Pavilion and joined Catherine Littlefield
's Philadelphia Ballet for a 1941 tour of the southern states and in 1942 was in the Broadway revival of J. M. Barrie
's A Kiss for Cinderella
. He then toured South America with American Ballet Caravan
.
Taras joined Ballet Theatre
in 1942 and rose to soloist
. He rehearsed the ballets of Lichine
, DeMille
, Nijinska, Balanchine and Tudor
and in 1946 choreographed his first ballet, Graziana.
He danced the 1947 season with the Markova-Dolin Company at the Chicago Civic Opera and produced Camille for de Basil's Original Ballet Russe
with Alicia Markova
and Anton Dolin
as the leads. Taras was principal dancer in de Basil's company and regisseur for their Covent Garden
and Paris seasons. He produced The Minotaur for Ballet Society that year. In 1949 he choreographed for the experimental Ballets des Champs-Élysées.
Taras staged the Schumann Spring Symphony for the San Francisco Ballet
in and Designs with Strings to music of Tchaikovsky for the Metropolitan Ballet in Edinburgh in 1948, from which time until 1959 he was choreographer and balletmaster for the Grand Ballet Du Marquis De Cuevas. Among the ballets he made for that company was Piège de Lumière from 1952 (which he restaged for New York City Ballet
in 1964). He choreographed Fanfare for a Prince as a pièce d'occasion
at the Monte-Carlo Opera for the 1956 marriage of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly
.
Balanchine invited Taras to stage La Sonnambula
at New York City Ballet
in 1959, where served as choreographer and balletmaster until 1984; among his works for City Ballet are Ebony Concerto, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Scenes de Ballet
, Song of the Nightingale and Persiphone for the Stravinsky festivals; Daphnis and Chloe
for the 1975 Ravel festival and Souvenir de Florence
for the 1981 Tchaikovsky festival. His 1963 Stravinsky ballet, Arcade
was Suzanne Farrell
's first featured role, as the young girl whose budding romance with Arthur Mitchell
is destroyed by a group of chaperones.
He was balletmaster of the Paris Opera Ballet 1969 to 1970, artistic director of West Berlin's Deutsche Oper Ballet from 1970 to 1972, staged Le Sacre du Printemps at La Scala
in Milan for Natalia Makarova
, and Sir Frederick Ashton
's Illuminations for the Joffrey Ballet
and the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden.
Taras staged his own version of the The Firebird
for Dance Theatre of Harlem
, which was seen on PBS
's Live from Kennedy Center and rehearsed Balanchine ballets for major companies, including the first Balanchine ever performed at the Bolshoi Ballet
, Moscow, January 1991, as part of their centenary celebration of Serge Prokofiev. Mikhail Baryshnikov
asked him in 1984 to join American Ballet Theatre
as associate director.
Michel Fokine
Michel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...
, Anatole Vilzak and Ludmila Shollar, and later to the School of American Ballet
School of American Ballet
The School of American Ballet is one of the most famous classical ballet schools in the world and is the associate school of the New York City Ballet, a leading international ballet company based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The school trains students from the...
. He first appeared professionally with Opera on Tour for which Fokine arranged dance.
He performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
with Ballet Caravan at the Ford Pavilion and joined Catherine Littlefield
Catherine Littlefield
Catherine Littlefield was an American ballerina and choreographer, one of the first inductees into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance.She founded the Philadelphia Ballet Company in 1935....
's Philadelphia Ballet for a 1941 tour of the southern states and in 1942 was in the Broadway revival of J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's A Kiss for Cinderella
A Kiss for Cinderella
A Kiss for Cinderella is a play by J. M. Barrie. It was featured on Broadway in 1916 and starred Maude Adams. The play opened at the Empire Theater on December 25, 1916 and ran for 152 performances...
. He then toured South America with American Ballet Caravan
American Ballet
The American Ballet was the first professional ballet company George Balanchine created in the United States. The company was founded with the help of Lincoln Kirstein and Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg, managed by Alexander Merovitch and populated by students of Kirstein and Balanchine's School of...
.
Taras joined Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
in 1942 and rose to soloist
Soloist (ballet)
In ballet, a soloist is a dancer in a ballet company above the corps de ballet but below principal dancer....
. He rehearsed the ballets of Lichine
David Lichine
David Lichine / Дэвид Лишин was a Russian/French/US ballet dancer and choreographer; he was born as Давид Лихтенштейн David Lichtenštejn / David Lichtenstein ....
, DeMille
Agnes de Mille
Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.-Early years:Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMille and her uncle Cecil B. DeMille were both Hollywood directors...
, Nijinska, Balanchine and Tudor
Antony Tudor
Antony Tudor was an English ballet choreographer, teacher and dancer.-Biography:Tudor, born William Cook, discovered dance accidentally. He began dancing professionally with Marie Rambert in 1928, becoming general assistant for her Ballet Club the next year...
and in 1946 choreographed his first ballet, Graziana.
He danced the 1947 season with the Markova-Dolin Company at the Chicago Civic Opera and produced Camille for de Basil's Original Ballet Russe
Original Ballet Russe
The Original Ballet Russe was a ballet company established in 1932 by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil as a successor to the Ballets Russes. The company assumed the new name Original Ballet Russe after a split between de Basil and Blum...
with Alicia Markova
Alicia Markova
Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, DMus, was an English ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the...
and Anton Dolin
Anton Dolin
Sir Anton Dolin was an English ballet dancer and choreographer.Dolin was born in Slinfold in Sussex as Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay but was generally known as Patrick Kay. He joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1921, was a principal there from 1924, and was a principal...
as the leads. Taras was principal dancer in de Basil's company and regisseur for their Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
and Paris seasons. He produced The Minotaur for Ballet Society that year. In 1949 he choreographed for the experimental Ballets des Champs-Élysées.
Taras staged the Schumann Spring Symphony for the San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
The San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. SFB is the first professional ballet company in the United States...
in and Designs with Strings to music of Tchaikovsky for the Metropolitan Ballet in Edinburgh in 1948, from which time until 1959 he was choreographer and balletmaster for the Grand Ballet Du Marquis De Cuevas. Among the ballets he made for that company was Piège de Lumière from 1952 (which he restaged for New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
in 1964). He choreographed Fanfare for a Prince as a pièce d'occasion
Pièce d'occasion
A pièce d'occasion is a composition, dance or theatrical piece composed, often commissioned, for a festive occasion.- Examples :* The Dying Swan, ballet by Mikhail Fokine for the ballerina Anna Pavlova * Fanfare for a Prince, ballet by John Taras * Dance Preludes, ballet by Miriam Mahdaviani * FOR...
at the Monte-Carlo Opera for the 1956 marriage of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
.
Balanchine invited Taras to stage La Sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
at New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
in 1959, where served as choreographer and balletmaster until 1984; among his works for City Ballet are Ebony Concerto, Concerto for Piano and Winds, Scenes de Ballet
Scènes de Ballet (Taras)
Scènes de ballet is a ballet made by New York City Ballet balletmaster John Taras to Stravinsky's eponymous music from 1944. The premiere took place June 22, 1972, as part of the City Ballet's Stravinsky Festival at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center.- Original cast : *Patricia...
, Song of the Nightingale and Persiphone for the Stravinsky festivals; Daphnis and Chloe
Daphnis and Chloe
Daphnis and Chloe is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus.-Setting and style:It is set on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD, which is also assumed to be the author's home. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are...
for the 1975 Ravel festival and Souvenir de Florence
Souvenir de Florence
The String Sextet in D minor "Souvenir de Florence", Op. 70, is a string sextet scored for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos composed in the European summer of 1890 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society in response to his becoming an...
for the 1981 Tchaikovsky festival. His 1963 Stravinsky ballet, Arcade
Arcade (ballet)
Arcade is a ballet made by John Taras to Igor Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds . The premiere took place Thursday, March 28th, 1963, at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center .- Original Cast : *Suzanne Farrell...
was Suzanne Farrell
Suzanne Farrell
Suzanne Farrell is an eminent 20th century ballerina and the founder of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C....
's first featured role, as the young girl whose budding romance with Arthur Mitchell
Arthur Mitchell (dancer)
Arthur Mitchell is an African-American dancer and choreographer who created a training school and the first African-American classical ballet company, Dance Theatre of Harlem...
is destroyed by a group of chaperones.
He was balletmaster of the Paris Opera Ballet 1969 to 1970, artistic director of West Berlin's Deutsche Oper Ballet from 1970 to 1972, staged Le Sacre du Printemps at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan for Natalia Makarova
Natalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is the legendary Soviet-Russian-born prima ballerina. The History of Dance, published in 1981, notes that “Her performances set standards of artistry and aristocracy of dance which mark her as the finest ballerina of her generation.” She has also won awards as an...
, and Sir Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
's Illuminations for the Joffrey Ballet
Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet is a dance company in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1956. From 1995 to 2004, the company was known as The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The company regularly performs classical ballets including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, while balancing those classics with pioneering modern...
and the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden.
Taras staged his own version of the The Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
for Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem is a ballet company and school of the allied arts founded in Harlem, New York City, USA in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook...
, which was seen on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
's Live from Kennedy Center and rehearsed Balanchine ballets for major companies, including the first Balanchine ever performed at the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
, Moscow, January 1991, as part of their centenary celebration of Serge Prokofiev. Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
asked him in 1984 to join American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...
as associate director.
Reviews
- http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A1FF93F551A7A93C7A91789D95F448685F9NY Times of Tender Night, later titled Argentina, segment of Panamerica, by John MartinJohn Martin (dance critic)John Martin became America’s first major dance critic in 1927. Focusing his efforts on propelling the modern dance movement, he greatly influenced the careers of dancers such as Martha Graham...
, December 5, 1960]
Firebird
- http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00712F63A55127B93C1A81788D85F458785F9NY Times by Clive BarnesClive Barnes (critic)Clive Alexander Barnes, CBE was a British-born American writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977 he was the dance and theater critic for the New York Times, the most powerful position he had held, since its theater critics' reviews historically have had great influence on the success or failure of...
, March 13, 1971]
Obituary
- http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE0D81139F936A35757C0A9629C8B63NY Times by Anna KisselgoffAnna KisselgoffAnna Kisselgoff is a dance critic and cultural news reporter for the New York Times. She began at the Times as a dance critic and cultural news reporter in 1968, and became its Chief Dance Critic in 1977, a role she held until 2005...
, April 5, 2004]