Ballet Academy

Diana White, former Soloist of Balanchine’s NYC Ballet, is a Répétiteur and Master Teacher for the George Balanchine Trust and the Jerome Robbins Rights Trust.

Diana began ballet lessons when she was four years old in Chicago, Illinois and made her professional debut at age ten as a bug in George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the New York City Ballet came to Chicago. That experience set her on a lifetime course of studying, performing, staging, and coaching Balanchine’s works.

At age fourteen, Diana became the youngest member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Ballet under the direction of legendary American ballerina and Balanchine’s former wife, Maria Tallchief. At age sixteen, she was seen in Chicago by Balanchine himself, who offered her a scholarship to study at his School of American Ballet in New York. In 1977, she became an apprentice to the New York City Ballet and one year later, entered the company.

During her twenty-year performing career at the NYCB, Diana worked directly with Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She danced corps de ballet, soloist, and principal roles in over fifty Balanchine and twenty Robbins ballets. She was an original cast member of many ballets created by Robbins, including Opus 19 the Dreamer, Glass Pieces, Gershwin Concerto, and several revivals, including Moves and Fancy Free. Some of her favorite principal roles were in Balanchine’s Serenade, Liebeslieder Walzer, Rubies, Variations Pour Une Porte et un Soupir, Vienna Waltzes, Brahms Schoenberg Quartet, Vienna Waltzes, Firebird, The Four Temperaments, and Agon, and Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, The Cage, Moves, and the Goldberg Variations. Her performances were praised by critics in New York, as well as on international tours. Throughout this time, she was mentored and coached by the ballerinas, Suzanne Farrell, Violette Verdy, Sara Leland, and Karin Von Aroldingen.

Several years before retiring from the stage, at the encouragement of Suzanne Farrell, Diana began to teach and opened her own school in Scarsdale, NY. The process of passing on Balanchine’s choreography, aesthetic, technique, musicality, and philosophy fueled her passion to work with dancers around the world. Since 2004, as a répétiteur, she has staged ballets on professional companies and schools on six continents, including the Sofia National Opera, the Paris Opera Ballet, the National Ballet of China, the Houston Ballet, and many more.