Suzanne Farrell

Suzanne Farrell (born August 16, 1945) is a prominent American ballet dancer, teacher and coach, and the founder of Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

Farrell began her ballet training as a child in Cincinnati. In 1960, she received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. Her first leading roles at New York City Ballet came in the early 1960s, and she became a muse of George Balanchine. She left NYCB in 1969 and moved to Brussels to dance for Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1975, she moved back to the United States, where she collaborated with Balanchine until his death in 1983; she retired from performing six years later after hip surgery due to arthritis. She held a teaching position with NYCB until 1993 and has been a professor of dance at Florida State University since 2000. That same year, she founded her own company, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which disbanded at the end of 2017.

Farrell remains a legendary figure in the world of ballet, and in addition to honorary academic degrees has been the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was presented in 1987 with the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement at a ceremony in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was also elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.

Early life Farrell was born Roberta Sue Ficker in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her early training at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. In 1960, she was selected to study at the School of American Ballet with a Ford Foundation scholarship. In 1961, she joined the New York City Ballet. In 1965, she was promoted to principal dancer. Her first role in her new title was Agon with Arthur Mitchell at the Paris Opera. Balanchine quickly fell in love with his "alabaster princess" and created many roles for her. One of the most notable was Dulcinea in Don Quixote, which premiered in May 1965; Balanchine's creation of that ballet was thought to be a valentine to his newest "muse", and Balanchine performed the title role on opening night.

Balanchine was married at the time to the polio-stricken former ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq. In 1969, he divorced LeClercq to pursue Farrell, but she married fellow NYCB dancer Paul Mejia instead. This caused the relationship of Farrell and Balanchine to fracture, and Farrell and Mejia left the company. The couple were to remain married until 1997 .

Farrell and Mejia joined Maurice Béjart's Brussels-based Ballet of the 20th Century, where Farrell danced leading roles, some created for her, exploring a style of choreography completely different from Balanchine's. During this time, Farrell found herself often paired with the Argentine dancer Jorge Donn. She returned to New York City Ballet in 1975, after which Balanchine resumed creating new ballets for her, including Chaconne, Mozartiana, Tzigane and Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze. She also gave the premiere of Jerome Robbins's In Memory of...

Farrell's partnership with Balanchine lasted until his death in April 1983; his last works were solos for her. She retired from the New York City Ballet at age 44 on November 26, 1989, after being fired by Martins due to her three-year long absence from the stage, which was caused by her arthritis. In 2019, she was invited back, to coach "Diamonds," and she has returned since then to coach Tzigane (renamed Errante) , Chaconne, Apollo and Vienna Waltzes .

In 2000, Farrell began teaching in the Dance Department at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Despite positive reviews and an annual budget ranging from $1–$1.4 million, the center announced in September 2016 that the company would be disbanding at the end of the 2017 performance season. Deborah Rutter, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, noted that the center would be undergoing a new expansion project to include additional performance and rehearsal space. Farrell's new role in the organization remained unclear, however, Rutter emphasized that Farrell would continue to be an "artistic partner" at the center.

Film and video Early in her career, Farrell's performances of Concerto Barocco and A Midsummer Night's Dream were captured on camera. Several of Farrell's assumptions of Balanchine roles were filmed during the 1970s for PBS's Dance in America . She can also be seen dancing an excerpt from Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux in the 1977 feature movie The Turning Point, and she appeared in the 1979–1980 season of Sesame Street.

Autobiography Holding on to the Air: An Autobiography, co-written by Farrell with Toni Bentley, was published in 1990 , and reissued with a new preface by Farrell in 2002 .