Episode 63: Hear the Dance: Helgi Tomasson (Part 2)

City Ballet The Podcast

In Part 2 of this week’s Hear the Dance conversation between host Silas Farley and Helgi Tomasson, the two discuss Tomasson’s career following his entrance into the Company as a Principal Dancer in 1970. As he shares, originating a role in 1971 in Jerome Robbins’ The Goldberg Variations marked a turning point in Tomasson's life; the following year, the original Stravinsky Festival led to two more seminal roles created on the dancer: Balanchine’s Symphony in Three and Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fée. Tomassion describes how his years dancing with NYCB informed both his work as a choreographer and his tenure as the Artistic Director of San Francisco Ballet, on the eve of his retirement from that position. (38:16)

Written by Silas Farley Edited by Emilie Silvestri

MUSIC: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major (1931) by Igor Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements (1945) by Igor Stravinsky Le Baiser de la Fée (1928) by Igor Stravinsky Aria with Variations in G, BWV 988 (1742), "The Goldberg Variations" by Johann Sebastian Bach Symphony No. 1 in C major (1855) by Georges Bizet All music performed by the New York City Ballet Orchestra

READING LIST: The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an An American Dance Company by Sasha Anawalt The Stravinsky Festival of The New York City Ballet Written and Edited by Nancy Goldner Thirty Years: Lincoln Kirstein’s The New York City Ballet by Lincoln Kirstein Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins by Amanda Vaill San Francisco Ballet at Seventy-Five by Janice Ross; Preface by Brigitte LeFévre; Foreword by Allan Ulrich How Helgi Tomasson Reshaped S.F. Ballet to World-Class Renown by Rachel Howard