New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Ashley Bouder will retire from the stage after 25 years dancing with the company, the company announced on 22nd January 2025.
Ashley, who became a principal dancer in 2005, will give her performance with New York City Ballet on 13th February.
Ashley will dance the title role in George Balanchine’s Firebird, a role that she first performed during the 2001 Spring Season, less than a year after joining the company. It was also her first major principal role.
Toi toi toi, Ashley!
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Patricia Neary, stager who has worked for The George Balanchine Trust for almost 40 years, will retire in April 2025. She is 82 years old.
Neary, from Miami, Florida, joined National Ballet of Canada when she was 14 years old. She then danced with Balanchine’s New York City Ballet from 1960 to 1967. Subsequently, she moved on to Europe and danced and staged his works, and eventually took up positions of a ballet mistress and an artistic director.
Since the inception of The Balanchine Trust in 1987, Neary has worked for the trust and staged his works with many companies internationally.
The most recently, she worked with the Dutch National Ballet for staging Ruby of Balanchine’s Jewels.
As a personal note, I saw Neary in a theatre in Tokyo long time ago, when I went to watch a friend of mine, then a professional ballerina, in Star Dancers Ballet’s Balanchine performance. I remember Neary wore a very short skirt and her gorgeous and unbelievably long legs caught my eye!