Bart Cook is a highly regarded dance professional not only as a former principal dancer and ballet master for New York City Ballet (1971-1993), but as a repetiteur for both the George Balanchine Trust and the Robbins Rights Trust since 1988 traveling worldwide to most major ballet companies. He is noted specifically for his contribution to Balanchine’s “black and white” ballets like Agon, The Four Temperaments, Episodes, and Symphony in 3 Movements, and for Jerome Robbins’ ballets, The Cage, Glass Pieces, Fancy Free, Dance at a Gathering The Concert..  He has appeared often on public television in Dance in America, The Four Temperaments and Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Live From Lincoln Center and American Masters-Jerome Robbins, He is also featured in a documentary produced by the Checkerboard Foundation, Patsy Tarr, “Bart Cook-Choreographer."  He is featured in the 1993 film version  of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker as the magical Herr Drosselmeir. 

Balanchine himself assigned Cook the role of being Assistant Ballet Master to Mr. Robbins in 1980. A post he held until his departure in 1993. For the School of American Ballet, Mr. Balanchine urged Cook to begin to choreograph. And so he produced several ballets for the SAB Educational Outreach programs and for the SAB annual workshop. These included, Seven by Five, Three Preludes,(Saint-Saens), Three Preludes (Gershiwn), La Italiana in Algeri (Rossini) and Rondo (Mozart.) Many NYCB alumni were in these ballets like, Peter Boal, Jeff Edwards, Kelly Cass and Wendy Whelan.  In 1985 he restaged for the NYCB his Seven by Five Plus Two, and for the First American Musical Festiveal, “Into The Hopper,” music William Bolcom, Orphee Serenade.” As early example of a mixed medium ballet Cook employed the artwork of Red Grooms. His “Rocus Manhattan” at the Guggenheim was filmed with the principal dancers in this art installation. Also used was Hopper’s painting Night Hawks, Picasso’s Les Damoiselles, Legere’s Three Musician’s, Rousseau’s, The Dream, and  Magritte’s The Eye.  Other NYCB choreography, Flotezart, Mozart Flute Concerto, for the Diamond Project 1992. 

In 2011 Mr. Cook received the Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma-mater, the University of Utah. He is Vice-President and co-founder of the Apollo Arts Initiative Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of the arts from their deeper holistic perspective.  

Photo by Kiran West