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, Maria was chosen personally at the age of 17 by choreographer and founder of the NYCB, George Balanchine, to join his world renowned company. She worked extensively with both George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins from 1974-1994, 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 Jewels, Chaconne and Mozartiana. She has appeared numerous times on public television in Live from Lincoln Center as Titania in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Great Performances, and more recently in 2010, PBS’ American Masters- Jerome Robbins.
Since 1998 she has staged ballets for both the George Balanchine Trust and the Robbins Rights Trust worldwide, often with her husband Bart Cook, at such companies as Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Ballet West, Boston Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Tbilisi State Opera and Ballet, Miami City Ballet, among others. Her staging of Diamonds/ Jewels at Royal Ballet in 2007 won the Lawrence Olivier Award.
In 2011 she became President and co-founder of the Apollo Arts Initiative Foundation, a not for profit organization dedicated to fostering cultural awareness and wellness in its deepest holistic sense within the community and the individual. www.apolloartsinitiative.org
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.
In 2013 Maria received the Isadora Duncan Award ,the Izzie, for outstanding achievement in her re-staging of George Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony for San Francisco Ballet in 2012.
Ms. Calegari is an exhibited watercolorist, and has written several published essays on the significance of the Arts and Culture in our world today from an esoteric perspective.
Photo by Jack Mitchell