The Portland Ballet has performed many of John Clifford’s works over the years, as the George Balanchine protégé has enjoyed long associations with the company’s leaders.
Now, The Portland Ballet and its performers get to work with Clifford many days in the coming season.
The Portland Ballet has named the acclaimed choreographer as its artist-in-residence for the 2024-2025 season. Clifford brings a wealth of experience and creativity to TPB, further enriching its artistic programming.
Clifford will teach, choreograph, and stage ballets from the Balanchine Trust for TPB students.
The 77-year-old Clifford said his schedule allowed him to dedicate a full year to TPB and Artistic Director Nancy Davis and Executive Director Jim Lane, with whom he had danced professionally. In the past 23 years, Clifford has returned to TPB to teach and choreograph such works as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Enchanted Toyshop” and “A Christmas Carol,” among others.
Clifford, who lives in Los Angeles, had been working on a television special, but it has been put on hold, although he has other projects in the works.
“Give a little try for awhile, see what I can do,” Clifford mused. “I got an apartment literally a block away from the studio in Hillsdale.”
Make no mistake, this is a big deal for a longtime, established ballet company, located at 6250 S.W. Capitol Hwy. He’ll be working with students — a passion going back to age 19 in the 1950s with Balanchine at New York City Ballet — as well as help with performances, including his own by TPB this season, “Firebird.”
“We are so excited to bring John Clifford to The Portland Ballet for this residency,” Davis said. “John played an integral role in my professional ballet career, and since TPB opened its doors in 2001, John has played a key role as artistic advisor, choreographer, and repetiteur for our Balanchine repertory. Having him here on a daily basis will bring our training program to new heights.”
Clifford has always enjoyed his time with TPB.
“Up here they have a really strong work ethic,” he said. “Like any school company, (participation) ebbs and flows, it’s very fluid. They’ve always maintained a really high level. They had an audition recently and got a lot of good dancers for their Career Track. Really enthusiastic new kids.”
A former principal dancer and choreographer with Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, Clifford has staged Balanchine’s ballets as well as his own works for prestigious companies worldwide, including the New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Zurich Ballet, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, among others.
In 2005, Clifford’s Los Angeles Dance Theater company premiered his “Casablanca: The Dance,” commissioned by Warner Bros., in Beijing, China. This was the first Western ballet company to premiere a full-length work in The Great Hall of the People and the first time Warner Bros. has ever allowed an adaptation of their most famous film.
Clifford is also the author of “Balanchine’s Apprentice: From Hollywood to New York and Back,” a critically acclaimed memoir. A feature-length documentary film celebrating Clifford’s illustrious career is currently in production.
Clifford began dancing at an early age (11) in Los Angeles, and worked with Balanchine briefly, but he later joined New York City Ballet and spent much of his career being a performer, teacher, choreographer, protégé and friend to Balanchine until the Russian-American ballet legend died in 1983.
“I left the company with regret at age 27 to start Los Angeles Ballet,” he said. “I had choreographed eight ballets, was principal dancer. He gave me his ballets for free (for L.A. Ballet), but called me back to dance. When (Mikhail) Baryshnikov joined (NY) company, he didn’t need me.
“Then he was ill for quite awhile, I would go back and visit him, take class, always around. He called me in 1980 and he needed me to dance again. I was in my mid 30s; I hadn’t done it in six years. Hardest ballet ever, Oberon in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ He was happy. His health went downhill.” Balanchine had a variety of health issues in his life.
He added: “Before he died, his secretary asked me to come back, and I visited him at the end. He swore me to an oath, with his dying breath, basically said to me, ‘Don’t Forget. You remember.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You remember everything.’”
Clifford said Balanchine “meant the world to me. He was like my father. … He was very funny and young and energetic right until the last few years.”
A legendary figure, Balanchine influenced many choreographers, including Martha Graham, Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins, as well as films, theater, dance, ballet companies — “the Balanchine style became the American style,” Clifford said. “He’s a titan.”
The best advice Balanchine gave Clifford?
“Patience,” he said. “I’m very impatient. Watching the way he dealt with health and life, it never stopped him. He knew how to be patient with critics or dancers or temperamental artists. He was a master of that. That seeped into the way I handle things.
“He would say, ‘Tomorrow will be better.’”
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