The School of American Ballet Announces 2014 WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE BENEFIT, 6/3

The School of American Ballet announces the Workshop Performance Benefit 2014 on Tuesday, June 3, 2014, celebrating 50 years of these annual performances. Tickets and tables will be available in mid-April. For more information, please contact the special events office at SAB at (212) 769-6610.

The Workshop Performance Benefit 2014 is The School of American Ballet's most anticipated event of the year. The annual Workshop Performances are SAB's only public performances and a rare opportunity to get a sneak preview of the ballet world's up and coming young stars. A Benefit Dinner follows the Tuesday evening performance at Lincoln Center, and attracts more than 550 arts patrons, corporate VIPs and New York's social elite for a seated dinner and dancing in the SAB studios, which are transformed into elegant dining rooms for the evening.

This year's event is headed by Chairmen Liz Armstrong, Benan and Tom Ellis, Joyce and Bob Giuffra, Susan R. Kessler, Amy Newman and Bud Shulman; and Young Patron Chairman Brynn Putnam. The event will be sponsored by Epoch Estate Wines.

In 1964, Alexandra Danilova, George Balanchine's former classmate at the Imperial Ballet and a leading ballerina of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo joined SAB's faculty. In 1965, Madame Danilova established SAB's annual year-end Workshop Performances, giving the School's advanced students an opportunity to participate in professionally staged, publicly performed productions of classic ballet works. Since its inception, the Workshop Performances have seen hundreds of SAB's advanced students make their public debut as they prepare to leave SAB and go on to dance on the world's top stages. The New York Timescoined Workshop a "spot-them-before-they-are-stars showcase". Scores of notable SAB alumni have performed at Workshop, including Merrill Ashley, Peter Boal, Maria Kowroski, Lourdes Lopez, Sara Mearns, Benjamin Millepied, Ethan Stiefel, and Wendy Whelan.

The 2014 Workshop Performances program will include Balanchine's Serenade (staged by Suki Schorer); and excerpts from Coppélia (staged by Dena Abergel, Yvonne Borree, Kaitlyn Gilliland, Arch Higgins, Katrina Killian, Lisa de Ribere, Jock Soto and Sheryl Ware), Swan Lake (staged by Darci Kistler) and Western Symphony (staged by Susan Pilarre). Additional performances of the evening's program will take place at Lincoln Center's Peter Jay Sharp Theater on Saturday, May 31 at 2pm and 8pm.

Tickets for the 2014 Workshop Performances may be purchased online at www.sab.org/workshop beginning in mid-April. Ticket prices are $50 for May 31 (2pm and 8pm). Tickets for the June 3 benefit performance and dinner dance are available at $100 (performance only), $300, $1,000, $1,500 and $2,500. The Peter Jay Sharp Theater is located at 155 W. 65th Street (between Amsterdam and Broadway).

The School of American Ballet, the official training academy of the New York City Ballet, was established in 1934 by legendary choreographer George Balanchine and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein as the first and most essential step in their quest to create an American classical ballet company.

SAB, located at New York City's Lincoln Center, is the premier ballet academy in the United States, training more students who go on to become professional dancers than any other school. SAB's former students fill the ranks of the New York City Ballet and other leading U.S. and international ballet companies.

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