Charles Askegard Leaves His Ballerinas At New York City Ballet

Jocelyn Noveck The Huffington Post 10/10/2011 15:56

At farewell performances for its retiring dancers, New York City Ballet tends to suddenly feel like a big family, with everyone home for Thanksgiving, bearing flowers and hugs and snapping photos.

That was certainly the case on Sunday as the company bid goodbye to Charles Askegard, one of its best-liked dancers – especially by the ballerinas that he partnered with an assured grace for 14 years.

Askegard, 42, is hardly leaving dance – he's actually forming a new company, Ballet Next, with a former American Ballet Theatre ballerina, Michele Wiles. And he will likely be making many other guest appearances.

But City Ballet audiences will no longer see him in familiar roles such as the male in "Diamonds," from George Balanchine's elegant "Jewels," or the swaggering cowboy in "Western Symphony," the rollicking crowd-pleaser that closed Sunday's program.

And so, at curtain calls, they rose in unison to applaud the dancer known to colleagues as simply "Chuck," as one by one, his female partners came out with bouquets and kisses. One of them, the veteran dancer Wendy Whelan, stood behind him and snapped photos with a tiny camera she had brought onstage.

A gaggle of male dancers followed, with a more macho greeting – Askegard even got a chest bump. (You thought ballet dancers didn't chest bump?) The love-fest was topped off by a burst of confetti from above.

Askegard came to City Ballet in 1997 after 10 years at ABT, and was promoted to principal dancer the following year. Strikingly tall at 6 feet and 4 inches, he quickly became known for his steady, gallant partnering.