Test Your Knowledge!

Questions:

1. In what genre did Joffrey begin his dance training?
2. Which ballet marked Joffrey’s first performance on a professional stage?
3. With whom did Joffrey form an artistic and domestic partnership that continued throughout his life?
4. Where did Joffrey open his first school?
5. What was Joffrey the first to do with his company, despite many criticizing him as being commercialized?
6. Joffrey was the first American artistic director to present the work of which Danish choreographer?
7. Name one of the Diaghilev-era ballet recreations for which Joffrey is noted.
8. By 1976, the company was the main showcase for which choreographer’s ballets?
9. Which ballet did Joffrey première in 1967, drawing both shock and elation from audience members and critics?
10. Since Joffrey’s death in 1988, where has the ballet company taken up residence?

Answers:

1. Tap
2. A Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of Petrouchka
3. Gerald Arpino
4. Greenwich Village
5. He was the first to commission ballets from many contemporary ballet, modern and avant-garde choreographers, particularly Americans.
6. August Bournonville
7. Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, Massine’s Parade or Balanchine’s Cotillon
8. Kurt Jooss
9. Astarte
10. The historic Auditorium Theatre in Chicago 

Pictured: Robert Joffrey; Credit Herbert Migdoll/Courtesy of Joffrey Ballet Chicago