Maria Calegari, an Italian New Yorker, started ballet at the age of 3 ½ with Jeanette DuPons in Bayside, Queens. She continued her studies at Ballet Academy in Forest Hills with Florence and Victor Reilley, who prepared her for an audition at the School of American Ballet. At fourteen she received a full time scholarship there, which included attendance to Professional Children’s School.

In 1974, at the age of seventeen, she was personally chosen by George Balanchine to join the New York City Ballet. She was promoted to soloist in 1981 and then principal dancer in 1983.

Ms. Calegari worked extensively with Balanchine for a decade and has preformed over 40 soloist roles in his repertoire at Lincoln Center. Some of her favorite ballets were Serenade, Agon, Apollo, Jewels, Mozartiana, Swan Lake, Divertimento #15, Violin Concerto, and Lebeslieder Waltzer.

She also worked closely with Jerome Robbins, dancing in most of his existing repertoire [Dances at a Gathering, In the Night, Afternoon of a Faun] and originating roles in many new works, some of which included Glass Pieces and Antique Epigraphs. In the collaborative work between Robbins and Tharp, the Brahms-Handel, Ms. Calegari appeared as the ballerina for the Tharp choreography to much notoriety.

Ms. Calegari has appeared on public television numerous times, and was seen as Titania on “Live From Lincoln Center” in Mr. Balanchine’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Her dancing can be viewed at the Library of Performing Arts Dance Collection at Lincoln Center.

After leaving the NYCB in 1994, Ms. Calegari began her teaching career with students and professional dancers. She served as Artist-in Residence at the Richmond Center for Dance, as an Associate Professor of Dance at SUNY Purchase in NY, and had her own school, The Maria Calegari School of Ballet in New Milford, Connecticut from 2002 to 2004.

Ms. Calegari also continued to dance, appearing in Suzanne Farrell Stages Balanchine at the Kennedy Center in 1995, and with the Richmond Ballet from 1997 to 1998. Her final dance appearance was in 2000, in Balanchine’s solo Pavane.

Her work as a répétiteur for the George Balanchine Trust began in 1996 and for the Robbins Rights Trust in 2003, staging ballets for the Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Ballet West, Boston Ballet, Leipzig Ballet, among others.

Often traveling with her husband Bart Cook, also a former principal dancer with NYCB and répétiteur for both Trusts, they visit most of the major ballet companies throughout the world including those in Russia and Tbilisi, Georgia. At The State Ballet of Georgia, whose Artistic Director is ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, they have brought over 10 Balanchine ballets, including Serenade, Bugaku, and Mozartiana during the 2005 - 2007 seasons.

Ms. Calegari staged the Diamonds section for Balanchine’s Jewels at the Royal Ballet in November 2007. The overall production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Production. Mr. Cook and Ms. Calegari’s 2003 staging of Ballet Imperial for the Tchaikovsky Perm State Ballet in Perm, Russia won the Russian Golden Mask Award.

Ms. Calegari is also an avid watercolor artist and serves on the Advisory Committee for Arts On the Lake in Kent Lakes, NY. She has published several articles for The Beacon magazine, Lucis Trust Publications, on George Balanchine’s life and career with an esoteric perspective. She currently resides in Putnam County, New York with her husband Bart Cook and her beloved 6 cats. She is listed in America’s Who’s Who for her accomplishments in ballet and her reviews from her dance career and recent stagings can be accessed on the worldwide web.