That Time Magazine called her “America’s greatest ballerina ever” has never been challenged. Suzanne Farrell, former prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet and longtime muse to legendary choreographer George Balanchine, formed her own company in 2000 under the aegis of the Kennedy Center to preserve the rich dance tradition established by her mentor, who created many of his works for her. Her program will be almost all-Balanchine, including excerpts from his Divertimento No. 15 (Mozart); a real rarity, the Contrapuntal Blues pas de deux from Clarinade; and one of his greatest masterpieces, Agon, set to music of Stravinsky. All this plus the Scene d’amour from Maurice Bejart’s Romeo and Juliet (Berlioz). Don’t miss this opportunity to see why The New York Times said The Suzanne Farrell Ballet “displays energy, scale, detailed nuance and musical sophistication seldom found anywhere.”

Following the company’s performance at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, Ms. Farrell will participate in an open discussion, with Joan Acocella and Simon Morrison. Joan Acocella is a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she reviews dance and books. A longtime dance critic, her recent collection of essays, Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award, and it won the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Simon Morrison is Professor of Music at Princeton University, author most recently of the The People’s Artist: Prokofiev’s Soviet Years. He collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group on the production of the original version of the ballet Romeo and Juliet, preparing the score based on archival documents housed in Moscow. The discussion is sponsored by The Department of Music, Lewis Center for the Arts, and the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Princeton University

The audience is invited to stay after the performance for a discussion with Suzanne Farrell, dance critic Joan Acocella, and Princeton University music professor Simon Morrison.