CELEBRITY SERIES OF BOSTON PRESENTS
MOISEYEV DANCE COMPANY
SUNDAY, JANUARY 20 AT SYMPHONY HALL

(BOSTON)—Celebrity Series of Boston, Martha H. Jones, President and Executive Director, presents the Moiseyev Dance Company on Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 p.m. at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston. Founded by the late Igor Moiseyev, the company is known as the world’s preeminent Russian folk dance ensemble, and is currently celebrating its 70 th anniversary. The company will perform an all-Moiseyev program, full program information is listed below. The engagement is sponsored by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The Celebrity Series of Boston presented the Moiseyev Dance Company’s most recent appearance in Boston in January 1999. The upcoming engagement marks the company’s tenth Celebrity Series appearance since its debut in 1958.

The origins of the Moiseyev Dance Company can be traced to 1936 when Igor Moiseyev, then a Ballet Master with the Bolshoi Ballet, was asked by the Soviet government to organize the country’s first Festival of National Dance. As a student, Mr. Moiseyev had traveled throughout Russia on foot studying folklore, songs, dance, customs, and traditions. Having been fascinated by what he found, he embraced this unprecedented task of bringing traditional dances to national attention. The festival’s subsequent success convinced Mr. Moiseyev that the formation of a professional company was necessary in order to preserve and develop traditional Russian folk dancing.

On February 10, 1937, Mr. Moiseyev gathered together a core of approximately forty dancers in a Moscow studio. The burgeoning company was comprised of dancers from amateur companies, as well as professional ballet dancers from the Bolshoi School and other classical companies. Six months later, the Moiseyev Dance Company gave its first performance at the city’s Green Theatre. The inaugural program included dances from the Ukraine, Armenia, Belorussia, the Far North, and Azerbaijan, and received immediate and overwhelming public acclaim. Within a few years of this initial triumph, Mr. Moiseyev had formed a company of 100 dancers. The company toured throughout the Soviet Union, constantly adding dances from other regions, including Georgia, the Caucausus, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, the Gobi desert, and Siberia. Mr. Moiseyev also created new works based on current political themes, such as the struggle of the Russian people during World War II.

In 1955, the company began to tour internationally. It has since appeared in more than 60 countries, and on all continents. Its ever‑growing repertoire today includes dances of Spain, Japan, China, Bulgaria, Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Hungary and the United States. The company now numbers more than 200, has its own orchestra and school, and possesses a repertoire of more than 200 dances. The company made its United States debut in 1958 when Sol Hurok brought it to New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House. The company’s January engagement with the Celebrity Series of Boston is part of a major North American tour commemorating the life and work of Mr. Moiseyev, as well as the company’s 70 th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of its first US tour.

Program Information

MOISEYEV DANCE COMPANY
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 p.m.
Symphony Hall
301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston

All choreography by Igor Moiseyev

Russian Dance “Summer”
Music: S. Galperin, V. Zhmykhov

Kalmuk Dance
Music: P. Rybakov

Tatarochka
Music: P. Rybakov

Russian Dance “Polyanka”
Music: E. Avksentiev

Suite of Moldavian Dances: “Hora”, “Chiokirlie”, “Zhok”
Music: D. Fedov

Suite of the Greek Dances “Sirtaki”
Music: Traditional

Gypsies
Music: S. Galperin

Romanian Dance “Briul”
Music: S. Galperin

Egyptian Dance
Music: Traditional

Aragonskaya “Khota”
Music: M. Glinka

Venezuelan Dance “Khoropo”
Music: A. Gus

Dance of Argentinean Cowboys “Gaucho”
Music: N. Nekrasov

Nanayan National Play “Two Boys in a Fight”

Yablotchko (Part of the Naval Suite)
Music: Traditional

Sponsored by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Ticketing Information
Tickets, priced at $60, $54, $47, $37, and $32 , are available by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 (Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.), online at www.celebrityseries.org, or at the Symphony Hall box office, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Monday-Saturday 10:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.

About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston is New England's leading presenter of music, dance, and the performing arts from around the world. Founded in 1938, the Series incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1989. Each year, the Celebrity Series brings to Boston's major concert halls performances by instrumental and vocal soloists, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance companies, jazz and popular music performers, folk and ethnic performance groups, and other performing artists. The Celebrity Series' Arts, Education and Community program was initiated in 1984. The program reaches thousands of students annually in Boston area schools and communities. The program includes the award-winning AileyCamp Boston, a six-week summer dance program for Boston middle school students, and ACT 2, an after-school initiative for former participants of AileyCamp Boston. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.

The Celebrity Series receives major annual support from two anonymous donors; The Little Family Foundation; The Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; Bank of America; The Linde Family Foundation; Tufts Health Plan; Talbots Charitable Foundation; Foley & Lardner LLP; Charlesbank Capital Partners; Comcast; Morgan Stanley; BDO Seidman; PTC; Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation; Steven and Joan Belkin Foundation; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; The Consolate General of Canada; The Collings Foundation; The Esther B. Kahn Charitable Foundation; The Red Sox Foundation; Massachusetts Cultural Council; National Endowment for the Arts; New England Foundation for the Arts; Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Foundation; The Harris A. Berman and Ruth E. Nemzoff Family Foundation; Amy and Joshua Boger; DeMoulas Foundation; Margaret Eagle and Eli Rapaport; Kathleen and Steven Haley; Cerise and Charles Jacobs; Paul L. King; Jann E. Leeming and Arthur D. Little; Paul F. and Barbara A. Levy; Frank and Eleanor Pao; Spring Sirkin and Arthur Frank; Dorothy and Stephen Weber; Nancy Richmond Winsten and Dr. Joseph Winsten; Charles O. Wood, III and Miriam M. Wood; Ellen and Arnold Zetcher.

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