Maria Calegari

Maria Calegari is an international and U.S. ballet instructor and former acclaimed Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet. A native New Yorker, she was personally chosen at the age of 17 by choreographer and founder of the New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, to join his world renowned company. She worked extensively with both George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, from 1974 to 1994, performing and creating over 40 soloist roles in their extensive repertory. Her principal roles covered a wide range of styles including ballets like »Agon«, »Apollo«, »Swan Lake«, »Serenade«, »Dances at a Gathering«, »Afternoon of a Faun«, »Glass Pieces« and »Mozartiana«. She has appeared numerous times on public television, »Live from Lincoln Center«, »Great Performances«, and more recently in 2010 on PBS in »American Masters – Jerome Robbins«.

Since 1998 she has staged ballets for both the George Balanchine Trust and the Robbins Rights Trust worldwide at such companies as Royal Ballet London, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Boston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Tbilisi State Opera Ballet, Teatro alla Scala, Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, among others. Her staging of »Diamonds« at the Royal Ballet in 2007 won the Lawrence Olivier Award. She received the prestigious Jerome Robbins Award in 2011 at Lincoln Center for her contributions in dance and she is listed in »Who’s Who of American Women« since 1983. In 2013 Maria Calegari received the Isadora Duncan Award for outstanding achievement in her re-staging of George Balanchine’s »Scotch Symphony« for San Francisco Ballet.

She is an exhibited watercolourist, has written several published essays on the significance of the Arts and Culture in our world today and is the President and co-founder of the Apollo Arts Initiative Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering cultural awareness and wellbeing in its deepest holistic sense.

After the restaging of Balanchine’s »Stravinsky Violin Concerto« in 2011, Maria Calegari returns to the Vienna State Ballet in 2021/22 to work on Balanchine’s ballet »Liebeslieder Walzer«.