50 Years and counting

The joffrey story

Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino's uniquely American vision of dance first took form in 1956. The original company consisted of six dynamic and highly individual dancers. While Robert Joffrey stayed in New York to teach ballet classes and earn money to pay the dancers' salaries, Gerald Arpino led the troupe across America's heartland, in a station wagon that pulled a U-Haul trailer. Their repertoire of original ballets by Robert Joffrey set them apart from other small touring companies, who often performed scaled-down versions of the classics. From the beginning, Joffrey and Arpino wanted a company that came out of their roots, out of America.

The Joffrey Ballet's inaugural performance occurred on the morning of October 2, 1956 at Frostberg State Teachers College in Maryland. The Joffrey's first performance in a major city took place in Chicago in 1957 at the Eighth Street Theater. On the strength of that Chicago performance, The Joffrey began to transform itself from a fledgling company to one of the premier ballet companies in the world. To date, The Joffrey has performed in over 400 U.S. cities and in all 50 states. International tours include Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Syria, Taiwan and Turkey. The Joffrey Ballet was the first American company to tour the former Soviet Union, and the first dance company to perform at the White House. The Joffrey also greatly increased dance audiences as one of the first dance companies to be featured in the award-winning PBS series "Dance in America.” In 2003, director Robert Altman released his feature film called "The Company," which is based on The Joffrey Ballet.

Together, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino created a uniquely American company of dancers for whom they choreographed original and socially relevant ballets. Now one of the most recognized names in dance,
The Joffrey Ballet is known around the world for its repertoire of historical ballets as well as groundbreaking works, such as Billboards, a full-length work created to the rock music of Prince. The Company was the first to commission ballets by modern dance and contemporary choreographers such as Alvin Ailey, Laura Dean, William Forsythe, Mark Morris and Twyla Tharp. They amassed the largest repertoires in the U.S. of works by such choreographers as Sir Frederick Ashton, John Cranko and Leonide Massine. They also reconstructed "lost" ballets of the early 20th century, primarily from Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, including Nijinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps, Massine's Parade, and Balanchine's Cotillon.

Established in New York in 1956, The Joffrey was the resident ballet company at City Center for many years. The Joffrey was also the resident ballet company of the Los Angeles Music Center from 1982 to 1992. Finally, in 1995, The Joffrey Ballet made Chicago its permanent home and is currently the resident ballet company of the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University.

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Ashley Wheater, Artistic Director of The Joffrey Ballet

Born in Scotland and raised in England, Mr. Wheater was trained at the Royal Ballet School. As a young dancer, he was cast in numerous productions at the Royal Opera House, including The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, MacMillan’s Anastasia, and Rudolf Nureyev’s Nutcracker. At the age of thirteen, he worked with Ashton on the world premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, a production in which Wheater performed throughout England and Europe. In addition, he performed Marguerite and Armand with Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn at the London Coliseum.

Mr. Wheater began his professional career with The Royal Ballet and joined London Festival Ballet on the advice of Nureyev, where he danced Romeo & Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty. There he also danced in Swan Lake, Etudes, Sphinx, and many other works. After two years he was promoted to principal dancer. In 1982, he joined The Australian Ballet, and under the direction of Marilyn Rowe, danced a multitude of roles in both classical and contemporary works. He also guested in Western Australia and Asia with Barry Morland, who created several ballets on him.

In 1985 Mr. Wheater joined The Joffrey Ballet, where he worked with Robert Joffrey, dancing in many American works by choreographers such as William Forsythe, Gerald Arpino, Eugene Loring, Mark Morris, and Laura Dean, in addition to performing the lead in numerous Ashton and Cranko works. In 1989 he joined San Francisco Ballet, dancing lead roles in nearly all of the Company’s full-length productions, including Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. In addition to performing a vast repertory, Mr. Wheater had many works created on him by choreographers such as Tomasson, James Kudelka, Bintley, and Morris, among others. In 1996, Mr. Wheater ended his dancing career after suffering a major neck injury. Mr. Wheater continued to perform principal character roles with the San Francisco Ballet, including Drosselmeyer in Tomasson’s current production of The Nutcracker and Kitri’s father in Tomasson/Possokhov’s Don Quixote.

After a long and successful career as a principal dancer, Ashley Wheater assumed the role of Ballet Master with San Francisco Ballet in 1996 and was named Assistant to the Artistic Director in 2002. His responsibilities include teaching Company class, rehearsing ballets, and coaching both principal dancers and soloists in various roles. Mr. Wheater has rehearsed numerous ballets from the Company’s diverse repertory, by choreographers including Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson (several one-act works and the full-length productions of Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, and Swan Lake); Sir Kenneth MacMillan; William Forsythe; Sir Frederick Ashton; George Balanchine; Harald Lander; David Bintley; Lar Lubovitch; Flemming Flindt; Ben Stevenson; Christopher Wheeldon; Julia Adam; and Peter Martins. He has also rehearsed works by Marius Petipa (including Natalia Makarova’s stagings of La Bayadere and Paquita), Rudolf Nureyev, Jerome Robbins, Roland Petit, Jules Perrot, Mark Morris, and Yuri Possokhov.

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Gerald Arpino, Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus

Gerald Arpino was born in Staten Island, New York, and received early dance training in Seattle by Mary Ann Wells. He co-founded The Joffrey Ballet with Robert Joffrey in 1956 and served as Associate Director for many years. Upon Joffrey's death in 1988, Arpino succeeded him as Artistic Director. In 1995, he moved The Joffrey Ballet to Chicago.

A leading dancer with the company in its early years, Arpino choreographed his first work for The Joffrey, Ropes, in 1961. Shortly thereafter, he became The Joffrey's resident choreographer and to date has created more than one-third of the company's repertoire. His amazingly diverse work ranges from social commentary to pure dance gems. His ballets are in the repertoires of companies around the world.

Arpino is the first choreographer commissioned to create a ballet honoring the Office of the American Presidency: The Pantages and the Palace Present Two-A-Day. He was the first American commissioned to choreograph a ballet for a city, San Antonio, Jamboree. In 1993, Arpino produced America's first full-evening rock ballet, Billboards, set to the music of Prince. In addition, Arpino is the only choreographer to have had four of his ballets performed at the White House.

Arpino serves on numerous boards and councils including the national advisory council of the ITI/USA International Ballet Competition and the board of the Dance Notation Bureau. He is a member of the Arts Advisory Committee of the New York International Festival of the Arts. He serves as an advisor to the Artists Committee for The Kennedy Center Honors. He is a member of the Board of The Chicago Academy For The Arts. Among many awards and tributes, he holds honorary doctorates from The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and Wagner College. He was a recipient of the 1974 Dance Magazine award and the Vaslav Nijinsky Medal. He has been honored twice by the Chicago Tribune as one of the "Chicagoans of the Year" for his important contribution to the arts in Chicago and the world

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