Cynthia Gregory, whom Nureyev called “America’s prima Ballerina assoluta”, was celebrated as one of the world’s greatest ballerinas during the world’s greatest ballerinas a career that spanned more than a quarter of a century.

Much of Miss Gregory’s early training was in her native Los Angeles with Carmelita Maracci. Awarded a Ford Foundation scholarship at age 14 to study with the San Francisco Ballet, she quickly rose to soloist and became a principal dancer shortly thereafter, while also dancing with the San Francisco Opera.

Miss Gregory joined the American Ballet Theatre in 1965. In 1967, when ABT was on tour in San Francisco, she made an auspicious debut as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. Her New Yor5k debut in the dual role later the same year marked her emergence as a major ballerina.

Miss Gregory danced in more than 80 works at ABT. Her classical reperto9ire included lead role in Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia, Raymonda, La Bayadere, Don Quixote and La Sylphide. She also danced in such notable twentieth-century ballets as Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Apollo and Prodigal Son, Tudor’s Jardin aux Lilas and Dark Elegies, DeMille’s Fall River Legend, Tetley’s Voluntaries and Gemini, Limon’s The Moor’s Pavanne and Culberg’s Miss Julie. Roles creaeted for her include Feld’s Harbinger and At Midnight, Ailey’s The River, Tharp’s Bach Partita, Smuin’s The Eternal Idol and Nahat’s Brahams Quintet. This “American Treasure” of the ballet world also performed as a guest with many of the great dance companies of the world, including National Ballet of Canada, Zurich State Opera Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet. BAllet Nacional de Cuba, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires and Stuffgart, Munich and Berlin State Opera Ballets.
Miss Gregory was 5the recipient of the 1975 Dance Magazine Award, honoring her dedication to and enrighment of the art of dance. In 1978, she received the Harkness Ballet Foundation’s first annual Dance Award and is the only recipient of two annual awards from Dance Educators of America, in 1981 and again in 1988. The New York Woman magazine presented Miss Gregory its first “Showstopper of the Year” award in 1988 and the following year found her being designated as a “Lion of the Performing Arts” by the New York Public Library’s. She received the lifetime achievement Certificate of Merit from the National Arts Club in 1991 and in 1993 was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Hofstra University. The State University of New York-Purchase College, in 1995, presented her with an honorary doctorate degree.

The artistic talents of Miss Gregory were not limited to the performing arts, either. She is the author of Ballet is the Best Exercise (Simon & Schuster, 1986) and her children’s book, Cynthia Gregory Dances Swan Lake, was published in 1990. Since 1991, she has been Chairman of the Board of Career Transition for Dancers, a not-for-profit organization that provides career counseling, scholarships and other vital services to dancers for, for reasons of age or injury, are making a career change. She also stages classical ballets, coaches and gives master dance classes for dance companies around the world. A busy wife and mother, Miss Gregory devotes some of her free time today to interpreting her most memorable roles through pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings. Her work has been shown at the Gallery of Lincoln center in New York City, the annual art shows of Greenwich and Rowayton, Connecticut and on dance posters and CD covers.

National Dance Week proudly announces Miss Gregory’s assumption of the role of national Celebrity Spokesperson for the 2008 celebrations. In presenting her as such, the American dance world is recognizing one of our greatest modern day ballerinas who serves as an inspiration to all young dancers throughout the world. She has allowed her many talents to emerge and blossom as she has moved from one stage to the next of her life as our Prima Ballerina Assoluta.

For more on CynthiaGregory:
http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Cynthia+Gregory&ots=SMTiHpsnfW&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title
http://www.careertransition.org/gala.html
http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?qs=a1006193
http://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiagregory