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ABT's Baby Boom: Balancing Pregnancy and Parenthood with a High Stakes Ballet Career

From left: ABT's Alexandra Basmagy, Lauren Post and Gillian Murphy. Photo by April Giangeruso, courtesy ABT.

On the last day of America Ballet Theatre's 2018 tour of The Nutcracker in Costa Mesa, California, corps member Alexandra Basmagy couldn't hold it in any longer. She broke the news to fellow corps members Gemma Bond and Lauren Post that she and her husband are expecting a little boy in August.

Basmagy was not the first ABT dancer to announce her pregnancy this season—principal Gillian Murphy revealed in December that she and her husband Ethan Stiefel were expecting a boy—nor would she be the last. Post's own announcement soon followed! Artistic director Kevin McKenzie burst out laughing when she told him the news, Post says. "He was like, 'It always happens in threes. Since Gillian told me and then Alex, I've been waiting for the last shoe to drop.'"

There is a veritable baby boom at ABT—Gemma Bond, corps member Alexei Agoudine, soloist Luciana Paris and soloist Thomas Forster are all new parents, and Murphy gave birth to her son, Ax Nathaniel, last month. Basmagy and Post are both in their third trimesters, with due dates on August 5th and August 19, respectively. Pointe interviewed these two moms-to-be, and then caught up with Forster and Paris, to learn how they navigate pregnancy and parenthood alongside a ballet career.

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News

ABT's Aran Bell and Joo Won Ahn Have Been Promoted to Soloist

Aran Bell in Swan Lake. Photo by Gene Schiavone, Courtesy ABT.

Most years, American Ballet Theatre closes its spring Met season with a sweet surprise: company promotions. Artistic director Kevin McKenzie just announced that two members of the corps de ballet—Aran Bell and Joo Won Ahn—are being promoted to soloist, effective September 1.

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News

ABT's Fall Season To Celebrate Herman Cornejo, Includes World Premieres by Twyla Tharp and Gemma Bond

Gemma Bond in the studio with ABT's Cassandra Trenary. Jim Lafferty.

If, like us, you're already mourning the end of American Ballet Theatre's marathon Met season, don't fear. The company just announced the lineup for its fall season, and there's a lot to look forward to.

Running October 16-27 at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater, ABT's fall lineup includes world premieres by choreographers Twyla Tharp and Gemma Bond. While Tharp has been creating for ABT since 1976 (the company's Met season included a trio of her works), corps dancer Gemma Bond will be making her choreographic debut for ABT's main company. The season also shines a spotlight on principal Herman Cornejo, who will be celebrating his 20th anniversary with the company.

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Viral Videos

This NYC Restaurant Created a "Whipped Cream" Ballet-Inspired Sundae, and We Had 4 ABT Dancers Try It

ABT dancers in Alexei Ratmansky's Whipped Cream. Courtesy ABT.

Alexei Ratmansky's Whipped Cream, which American Ballet Theatre debuted in 2017, tells the story of a young boy who eats too many sweets, falls into a delirium, and is rescued by Princess Praline, who brings him to a world inhabited by fantastical confectionary characters. Last week the chefs at New York's Serendipity 3, the famous Upper East Side eatery best known for its frozen hot chocolate, tried their hand at bringing Ratmansky's ballet to life (or at least to the table). The result is Whipped Cream - The Sundae, available to diners from May 7-July 13.

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Ballet Stars

These Three ABT Dancers' Moms Were Also ABT Dancers

ABT Studio Company dancer Chloe Misseldine and her mom, former soloist Yan Chen. Rosalie O'Connor.

When former American Ballet Theatre principal Cheryl Yeager watches her daughter—Hannah Marshall, a current ABT corps member—take the stage, she gets a bit emotional.

"I always think, 'I wanted to move just like you when I was dancing!' because we are total opposites," Yeager says. "She is tall and moves with a legato quality, while I was short and moved fast and staccato."

Marshall isn't the only ABT dancer who inherited ballet genes from her mother. Former ABT soloist Carla Stallings Lippert's daughter Carolyn Lippert is also a current member of the corps, and former soloist Yan Chen's 17-year-old daughter, Chloe Misseldine, is a rising ABT Studio Company star. So for Mother's Day, we spoke with each pair about what it's been like sharing the same career path.

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Ballet Stars

#TBT: Alessandra Ferri and Mikhail Baryshnikov as Giselle and Albrecht in "Dancers" (1987)

Alessandra Ferri and Mikhail Baryshnikov are two dancers whose physicality and artistic prowess truly pushed ballet to a new level. Their careers have spanned decades and continents, making them icons of the ballet world. In the late 1980s both dancers were working at American Ballet Theatre, Ferri as a principal dancer and Baryshnikov as artistic director and performer, when they co-starred in the 1987 film Dancers, a drama centered around a ballet company that included a staged production of Giselle. This clip from the film shows Ferri and Baryshnikov as Giselle and Albrecht in the last moments of the ballet, highlighting their dramatic chops with up-close camera angles.

Alessandra Ferri and Mikhail Baryshnikov - Last dance of Giselle and Albrecht www.youtube.com

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Ballet Stars

#TBT: Xiomara Reyes, Herman Cornejo and Erica Cornejo in the “Swan Lake” Pas de Trois (2005)

Xiomara Reyes, Herman Cornejo and Erica Cornejo in the "Swan Lake" pas de trois, via YouTube.

This week's TBT is a three-for-one throwback special: A power trio of versatile American Ballet Theatre performers, Xiomara Reyes and siblings Erica and Herman Cornejo, dance the Act I pas de trois from Swan Lake in this 2005 video. Reyes, who now heads The Washington School of Ballet, and Herman Cornejo both became principals at ABT in 2003 and were regular partners. Erica danced at ABT as a soloist until joining Boston Ballet as a principal in 2006. In the pas de trois from Swan Lake, the three dancers' unique camaraderie, exuberance and light, bounding ballon make for a show-stopping performance.

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Site Network

What It's Like to Be an Apprentice with American Ballet Theatre

Abbey Marrison (far left) performing in Lauren Lovette's Le Jeune in American Ballet Theatre's fall gala (Marty Sohl, courtesy ABT)

So many ballet greats start out as apprentices before joining the main company's corps de ballet. But what do the ins and outs of an apprenticeship actually look like? We had American Ballet Theatre apprentice Abbey Marrison keep a diary last fall during the week of the company's gala performance. In the gala, Marrison performed in Lauren Lovette's Le Jeune. A Markham, ON, Canada native, Marrison began her ballet training at Karpov Ballet Academy, and later placed as a finalist at the 2016 Youth America Grand Prix. She began training at American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in 2016, joined the ABT Studio Company a year later, and was made an apprentice in 2018. Here's what her job is like. —Courtney Bowers

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News

Onstage This Week: Justin Peck World Premiere at NYCB, The Beatles, Fred & Ginger, and More!

American Contemporary Ballet presents five Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers duets this week. Victor Demarchelier, Courtesy ACB.

Wonder what's going on in ballet? We've rounded up some highlights.

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Ballet Stars

#TBT: Irina Kolpakova in “The Sleeping Beauty” (1982)

Irina Kolpakova in "The Sleeping Beauty." Still vIa YouTube.

Irina Kolpakova, currently a ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre at age 85, is a living dance legend. She studied under Agrippina Vaganova and went on to dance as prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet (now the Mariinsky). In the '60s, she astonished American audiences with her interpretation of Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty during the Kirov's U.S. tours. She was a partner to Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and for the last 30 years she has set and coached ABT dancers in the classics.

With an influence that spans so many generations of dancers, it's not surprising that Kolpakova's youthful energy is one of her calling cards. That infectious quality is part of what makes Aurora her signature role. In this clip from 1982, Kolpakova, who was 49 at the time of the performance, channels the teenage Aurora's unbridled joy with purity and lightness in each step.

Kolpakova Sleeping Beauty Aurora Variation www.youtube.com

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News

Brooklyn Mack to Debut With American Ballet Theatre in "Le Corsaire"

Photo by Carlos Quezada, Courtesy ABT

American Ballet Theatre announced today that Brooklyn Mack, a former Washington Ballet star, will join the company as a guest for its spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House. Currently an in-demand international guest artist, Mack will dance in three performances of ABT's Le Corsaire this June.

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Ballet Stars

The Standouts of 2018: ABT's Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside in "Harlequinade"

Boylston and Whiteside brought charm and technical brilliance to Harlequinade. Photo by Alan Alejandro Sánchez, Courtesy ABT.

Alexei Ratmansky's reconstruction of Marius Petipa's Harlequinade, which debuted this spring at American Ballet Theatre, felt as fizzy and decadent as a glass of champagne. Though resplendently designed and lovingly assembled, the ballet relied on the personal charms of its Harlequin and Columbine to buoy its all-too-poppable bubble of a plot. And nobody brought more charm, or technical brilliance, to the leading roles than the opening-night cast, James Whiteside and Isabella Boylston. The charismatic duo perfectly understood the lightweight fun of the ballet, relishing the beauties of its coloratura choreography while keeping the extended mime passages just to the right side of camp. Their offstage best-friendship—they're known to their Instagram fans (including Jennifer Garner) as "the Cindies"—lent a special warmth to their onstage partnership, especially in the ballet's surprisingly tender climactic pas de deux. Audiences floated out of the theater afterward, pleasantly intoxicated.

Harlequinade www.youtube.com

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