Works & Process at the Guggenheim Presents Tanaquil Le Clercq's 'The Ballet Cook Book'

In 1967, ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq published The Ballet CookBook, her masterful compendium of ballet history, food stories, and recipes from over 90 leading dancers and choreographers of the day, including George Balanchine, Jacques d'Amboise, Melissa Hayden, and Allegra Kent. To mark the book's 50th anniversary, food scholar Meryl Rosofsky is curating a multifaceted program honoring Le Clercq's artistic, literary, and culinary legacy.

The program will include conversation with dance legends Jacques d'Amboise and Allegra Kent, who were at the book signing 50 years ago, and New York City Ballet principal dancers Jared Angle and Adrian Danchig-Waring, both talented cooks. The program will open with a presentation by Rosofsky, sharing her findings from her fall 2016 fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU where she delved into the cultural history of Le Clercq's The Ballet Cook Book. Interspersed throughout will bebrief live performance excerpts with roles originated by Ballet Cook Book contributors, from such works as Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, Bugaku, Stars and Stripes, and Western Symphony.

In conjunction with this program, The Wright restaurant at the Guggenheim will serve select dishes from The Ballet Cook Book, including Tanaquil Le Clercq's Chicken Vermouth, George Balanchine's Slow Beet Borschok, Melissa Hayden's Potato Latkas, and Allegra Kent's Walnut Apple Cake. For dinner reservations, call 212 427 5690 or visit opentable.com.

TICKETS & VENUE

$40, $35 Guggenheim Members and Friends of Works & Process

Box Office (212) 423-3575 or worksandprocess.org

Peter B. Lewis Theater

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

1071 Fifth Avenue, New York

Lead funding for Works & Process is provided by The Florence Gould Foundation, The Christian Humann Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Caroline M. Sharp and Evelyn Sharp Foundation with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Jared Angle (dancer, panelist) was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania where he began his early dance training at age six at the Allegheny Ballet Academy. He entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the fall of 1996. In 1997, Mr. Angle received the Rudolf Nureyev Scholarship to continue his training at SAB for the 1997-1998 school year. Mr. Angle became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in March 1998 and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in July 1998. He was promoted to the rank of soloist in February 2001. On November 11, 2005, Mr. Angle was promoted to principal dancer following a performance during a Company visit to Denmark for the reopening of the Tivoli Concert Hall.

Jacques d'Amboise (featured panelist), recognized as one of the finest classical dancers of our time,now leads the field of arts education with a model program that exposes thousands of school children to the magic and discipline of dance. In 1976, while still a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, Mr. d'Amboise founded National Dance Institute in the belief that the arts have a unique power to engage and motivate individuals towards excellence. His contributions in arts education have earned him numerous awards and honors. Mr. d'Amboise is also an Honorary Big Brother. "He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'," a 1984 PBS documentary film about his work with NDI, won an Academy Award, six Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award, the Golden Cine Award, and the National Education Association Award for the advancement of learning through broadcasting. He has also served as a full professor and Dean of Dance for two years at SUNY Purchase, and for 11 years as visiting professor at the College of Creative Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara. Mr. d'Amboise began his ballet training with Madame Seda in Washington Heights, New York. Within a year, at the age of eight, he continued his studies at the School of American Ballet with George Balanchine, Anatola Oboukhoff and Pierre Vladimiroff. At age 12 he performed with Ballet Society, the immediate predecessor to New York City Ballet. Three years later, barely 15, he joined New York City Ballet and the following year made his European debut at London's Covent Garden. As Balanchine's protégé, Mr. d'Amboise had more works choreographed specifically for him by The Ballet Master than any other dancer, including the ballets: Stars and Stripes, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Episodes, Figures in the Carpet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jewels, Raymonda Variations, Meditation, and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet.

Adrian Danchig-Waring (dancer, panelist) was born in San Francisco, California. He began his dance training at the age of 11 at Dance Theatre Seven with David Roxander. Mr. Danchig-Waring entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the fall of 2001. In October 2002 he became an apprentice with New York City Ballet, and in June 2003 he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet. In February of 2009 Mr. Danchig-Waring was promoted to soloist and became a principal in February 2013.

Allegra Kent (featured panelist), legendary ballerina and muse of George Balanchine and Joseph Cornell, started studying ballet at 11, with Bronislava Nijinska and Carmelita Maracci, in Los Angeles. At 14, she came to New York as a scholarship student at The School of American Ballet. The following year, George Balanchine invited her to join the New York City Ballet, where she danced for the next 30 years. Her intellect, talent, and personal qualities, both innocent and sensual, led Balanchine to create many roles for her and Cornell to create several of his boxes and collages with her image. Her Balanchine roles included the breathtaking airborne figure in "The Unanswered Question" section of Ivesiana, where she represented the elusive ideal. Balanchine created Bugaku, one of his most unusual ballets, for her and Edward Villella. Mr. B revived The Seven Deadly Sins and La Sonnambula for her. She also danced leading roles in his Apollo, Concerto Barocco, Agon, Scotch Symphony, and Symphony in C, among many masterpieces. She was a huge audience favorite, by turns sensual, delicate, and electrifying. Jerome Robbins created roles for her in Dances at a Gathering and Dumbarton Oaks, and he cast her in other ballets, including his Afternoon of a Faun and The Concert. When the New York City Ballet was invited to Russia, in 1962, Allegra's dazzling performances made such an impression that they are still discussed today. Currently a teacher at Barnard College, Allegra is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including her autobiography, Once a Dancer, and her first book for children, Ballerina Swan, which has recently leapt from the page onto the stage, courtesy of Making Books Sing. In 2009, she was a recipient of a Dance Magazine Award. She writes frequently for Dance and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Vogue, and Allure. Most recently, she has contributed an essay to The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. She lives in New York City.

Meryl Rosofsky (program curator, presenter, panel moderator) is a food scholar, writer, teacher, and strategy consultant whose work intersects the worlds of food, medicine, and the arts. Meryl is an adjunct professor in Food Studies at NYU and a 2015 recipient of the Steinhardt Teaching Excellence Award. Her writing has appeared in Saveur, Gastronomica, and various encyclopedias and journals devoted to food and culture. Meryl is a physician by training, with an MD from Harvard Medical School. She also holds a Masters degree in Food Studies from NYU and was a Kellett Fellow at Oxford University pursuing brain/behavior research. In Fall 2016, she was a Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, where she launched her research on the cultural history of Tanaquil Le Clercq's The Ballet Cook Book and began to elaborate a culinary biography of George Balanchine, who in addition to being a legendary choreographer was also a gifted and devoted cook.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
Described by The New York Times as "an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process," for over 33 years and in over 500 productions, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Most performances take place in the Guggenheim's intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. In 2017, Works & Process established a new residency and commissioning program, inviting artists to create new works, made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. worksandprocess.org.

Photos reprinted with permission from Dance Magazine