Louisville Ballet

315 East Main Street

Louisville, KY 40202

Phone: (502) 583-3150

BO Phone: (502) 584-7777

Email: info@louisvilleballet.org

Website: www.louisvilleballet.org

History

Louisville Ballet, the State Ballet of Kentucky, was founded in March 1952 as a civic ballet company. At the time, Louisville Ballet employed guest artistic directors and choreographers on a production-by-production basis. In 1965, Larry Gradus was engaged as a full-time resident Artistic Director with a troupe of temporary dancers. Ten years later, under the direction of Richard and Cristina Munro, the company achieved professional status by employing eight dancers to form the ensemble company. The Academy of the Louisville Ballet, now the Louisville Ballet School, opened the same year (1975) with Alun Jones as Associate Director. In 1978, Jones became Louisville Ballet’s Artistic Director, a position he held until his retirement in 2002. In addition to his duties as Artistic Director, Mr. Jones choreographed numerous works for the Company and also did a great deal of costume and scenic design during his tenure with the Louisville Ballet.

The Louisville Ballet named Bruce Simpson its new Artistic Director of the Company and the Louisville Ballet School in 2002. Under his artistic direction, the Louisville Ballet continues its philosophy of presenting an eclectic range of exciting work underscored by a foundation rooted in the classical repertoire. Through the dedication of its dancers, staff, school faculty and Board of Directors, the Company continues to enrich the community and its audiences.

The Louisville Ballet holds the distinction of being the only regional company with which Mikhail Baryshnikov has performed in repertoire productions. He danced with the company during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons, after which Louisville Ballet supported his performances in Dallas and Houston. Louisville Ballet reaches an audience of nearly 50,000 people each year and has earned a national reputation as one of the country’s leading regional ballet companies.

Louisville Ballet has over seventy world-premiere ballets to its credit and a repertoire of over 150 works by such choreographers as Sir Frederick Ashton, Erik Bruhn, George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Choo-San Goh, Jose Limon, Paul Taylor, David Parsons, Twyla Tharp, Andre Prokovsky and Domy Reiter-Soffer, along with Fokine and Bournonville ballets. In December of 2009, the Louisville Ballet will present the world premiere of its new production of The Brown-Forman Nutcracker with choreography by Val Caniparoli.

In the Fall of 2004, the Louisville Ballet named Adam Hougland as the Company’s Principal Choreographer. As such, Mr. Hougland has created four world premieres for the Company including Rite of Spring (2009) featuring Wendy Whelan, principal dancer - New York City Ballet. Prior to this appointment, the Louisville Ballet commissioned Hougland to create Cold Virtues (2003) and to re-stage Beyond (2002).

Sharing the art form of dance with the children of Kentucky and Southern Indiana is a long-standing tradition of the Louisville Ballet. The Company’s student education programs reach over 12,000 school children annually through student matinee performances and on-site lecture demonstrations. Since the first outreach efforts in 1973, three distinct types of education programs have developed to help teachers incorporate the ballet experience into their classroom activities: in-school programs; in-studio programs at the Louisville Ballet Center and student matinees performed at The Kentucky Center.

The Louisville Ballet School found a new home in 1999 at the St. Matthew’s Pavilion located in the east end of Louisville. With enrollment of approximately 400 students of all ages, the Louisville Ballet School offers instruction in a wide range of styles from classical ballet to tap. The Louisville Ballet School’s Youth Ensemble, chosen each year by audition, supports the professional company in larger productions and performs at the annual SERBA festival (Southeast Regional Ballet Association) hosted by Regional Dance America.

The Louisville Ballet marked five decades of dance in March of 2003. This professional company, which employs dancers from around the world, celebrates its rich history, its reputation in the global landscape of dance and looks forward to another fifty years of excellence in performance, outreach and education.

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