Harkness Ballet, established in 1964, gave its debut performance in Cannes in 1965, with George Skibine as director, Marjorie Tallchief[1] as ballerina and a repertory featuring work by Alvin Ailey, Skibine, Eric Bruhn, Brian Macdonald and Stuart Hodes, the company mostly toured abroad, in the major theaters of Europe, to great acclaim, giving its dancers and choreographers a cosmopolitan experience unknown to most of their American colleagues.
Its New York debut was in 1967 and Macdonald was also appointed director, succeeded by Lawrence Rhodes (1968) and joined by Benjamin Harkarvy in 1969.
The theater was completely remodeled with state-of-the-art dance stage flooring and Spanish artist Enrique Senis-Oliver painted ceiling murals, opening with a season by the company in 1974.
The vitality of the dancers was widely admired and many of the ballets were very erotic, including the homoerotic "Sebastian" (1963) to music of Gian-Carlo Menotti, "Monument for a Dead Boy" (1966) by Rudi van Dantzig (born 1933) and "Gemini" (1972) by Vicente Nebrada (born 1930).
Notable Harkness Ballet Trainee scholarship dancers attending the school included Lawrence Leritz and Patrick Swayze.