Jonathan Stafford knew he wanted to pursue ballet as a career when he was 15
years old during his first time in the audience at the New York City Ballet
(NYCB), the renowned dance company where he is now a principal dancer.
Originally from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Jonathan started dancing when
he was 8 years old, and made the move to New York City when he was 17
to study at the School of American Ballet (SAB). A
year later, he was invited to join the NYCB. Now, at 30, Jonathan is
still dancing with NYCB, is a faculty member at SAB, and is also
pursuing a degree in Organizational Leadership at Fordham University
Lincoln Center. It is clear that Jonathan’s career will continue to
lead him to new levels of success. And fun fact for all you Center Stage fans out there: Jonathan was
in it.
Jonathan’s
ambition and talent from a young age allowed him to make the cross over
from the audience to the stage--which, if you think about it, is pretty
much statistically impossible. Bravo!
Photo credit: Henry Leutwyler (c) 2010.
It is rare for a childhood activity to become an adult career, but for Lydia Wellington, it was a natural progression. Lydia was born in New York City and began dancing in 1997 at the School of American Ballet at the age of seven, where she gained her stride in the dancing world in children’s roles in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker and Serenade, Jerome Robbins’ 2&3 Part Inventions and Fanfare, and Christopher Wheeldon’s Scenes de Ballet--all this while balancing her studies at LaGuardia High School, where she graduated with awards in five subjects. Lydia continued her pursuit of dance to become an apprentice with the New York City Ballet in June 2008, and then succeeded in joining the Company as a member of the Corps de Ballet in October of the same year. Lydia has been recognized as a dancer with enormous potential, and was awarded the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise in 2008 by the School of American Ballet.
Lydia is at once living in a world of sugar plumb fairies and Vivaldi that seems so distant from the lives of most New Yorkers, yet she is fiercely down to earth with a secure sense of her environment.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music
(BAM) featured its first performance in 1861, and has been a fixture of
Brooklyn and New York City culture ever since. Now, more than ever, BAM
is bursting at the seams with international drama, art, music, dance, and
film, as home to the Howard Gilman Opera House, Harvey Theater, and Rose Cinemas. The woman at the helm is none other than its president, Karen Brooks Hopkins.
And what does the president of such a prestigious cultural center do?
The answer, in short, is: everything. From managing finances to
pleasing clientele, Karen is the force that has brought BAM into the
spotlight over the past couple of years.
Karen is committed to delivering cutting-edge art while leveraging all
of the creativity and character that Brooklyn has to offer. For more information about BAM, please visit www.bam.org.
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company was founded in 2007 by ballet celebrities Christopher Wheeldon and Lourdes Lopez. The company, based in New York City and London, has revolutionized the ballet world with innovative and contemporary choreography, costumes, music, set design, and programming to attract a wider audience. Christopher is the company's Artistic Director and one of ballet's most respected choreographers. He has created ballets for renowned companies including the Royal Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, and, most notably, the New York City Ballet, where he served as resident Choreographer from 2001 to 2008. Born in Somerset, England, he danced with both the Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet before retiring as a dancer to pursue choreography in 2000. Lourdes, the company's Executive Director, is a former New York City Ballet principal dancer, and served as the Executive Director of The George Balanchine Foundation. Born in Havana, she is also a founder of the Cuban Artists Fund, a company that supports Cuban and Cuban-American artists.
