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Allegra Kent

Allegra Kent’s career belongs first and foremost to ballet, but her work also reached television audiences through the 1958 Playhouse 90 telecast of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, in which she danced Dewdrop. It is a fitting screen record of a performer whose life was shaped by music, movement and the demanding world of the New York City Ballet. Born Iris Margo Cohen in Santa Monica on August 11, 1937, she later changed her name to Allegra Kent. She discovered music and dance at seven, although she did not take her first ballet lesson until she was 11. Kent studied with Bronislava Nijinska and Carmelita Maracci before attending the School of American Ballet. She joined the New York City Ballet in 1953, at just 15, and became a principal dancer in 1957. Kent’s association with Balanchine became central to her career. Roles in several of his ballets were created for her, including Seven Deadly Sins, Ivesiana and Bugaku. Her repertory also included Serenade, Agon and Dances at a Gathering. The range of those works points to a performer at home in ballet that could be theatrical, abstract or musically intricate. After retiring from performance in 1981, Kent continued in ballet as a teacher. She later recorded her experiences in Once a Dancer: An Autobiography, published in 1997. Her writing also extended to younger readers with the 2012 children’s book Ballerina Swan, illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully. The book was adapted as a dance piece by New York City Children’s Theater in 2013 and revived in 2015. Kent’s path—from beginning ballet at 11 to becoming a New York City Ballet principal while still in her teens—gives her story a distinctive shape. Whether dancing for the stage, appearing in a televised Balanchine production, teaching or writing, her work has remained closely tied to the art form that defined her career.