Harkness Ballet

The Harkness Ballet (1964-1975) was a major New York ballet company named after its founder Rebekah Harkness. Harkness inherited her husband's fortune in Standard Oil holdings and was a dance lover. Established in 1964, giving its debut performance in Cannes in 1965, with George Skibine as director, Marjorie Tallchief as ballerina and a repertory featuring work by Alvin Ailey, Skibine, Eric Bruhn, Brian Macdonald and Stuart Hodes, the company mostly toured abroad, in the major theaters of Europe, to great acclaim, giving its dancers and choreographers a cosmopolitan experience unknown to most of their American colleagues. Its New York debut was in 1967 and Macdonald was also appointed director, succeeded by Lawrence Rhodes (1968) and...