Suzanne Farrell

Suzanne Farrell (born August 16, 1945) is a prominent American ballet dancer, teacher and coach, and the founder of Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

Farrell began her ballet training as a child in Cincinnati. In 1960, she received a scholarship to the School of American Ballet. Her first leading roles at New York City Ballet came in the early 1960s, and she became a muse of George Balanchine. She left NYCB in 1969 and moved to Brussels to dance for Maurice Bejart's Ballet of the 20th Century. In 1975, she moved back to the United States, where she collaborated with Balanchine until his death in 1983; she retired from performing six years later after hip surgery due to arthritis. She held a teaching position with NYCB until 1993 and has been a professor of dance at Florida State University since 2000. That same year, she founded her own company, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which disbanded at the end of 2017.

Farrell remains a legendary figure in the world of ballet, and in addition to honorary academic degrees has been the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was presented in 1987 with the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement at a ceremony in Scottsdale, Arizona. She was also elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.