Legalities of Balanchine’s Ballet Legacy

George Balanchine’s death on April 30, 1983, left a vast, invaluable body of choreography in need of protection and supervision. In an era of casual video duplication, the task of keeping Balanchine’s ballets in wide circulation yet maintaining high standards for them represents an enormous responsibility, one without precedent in the dance world.

The major share of that responsibility has fallen to Barbara Horgan, named executor in the choreographer’s will and today a trustee and general partner of the George Balanchine Trust.

Associated since 1953 with the company that Balanchine founded in 1948 and directed until his death, Horgan was for many years Balanchine’s personal assistant. Seated in her office at the New York State Theater (home to New York City Ballet since 1964), she speaks with directness and clarity about the complex issues surrounding the Balanchine Estate.

“A great deal of my time is spent in negotiating Mr. Balanchine’s ballets all over the world,” she says, “arranging for them to be staged and getting in touch with those who stage them. I represent almost all of his ballets as they are licensed to other companies.”

In his will, Balanchine left all his rights, title and interests in certain ballets to specific individuals--leading ballerinas spanning the history of City Ballet, and other longtime associates. He also named a lengthy list of more than 80 works for which the rights were to be divided between Horgan and former City Ballet ballerinas Karin von Aroldingen and Tanaquil LeClercq (his fourth wife).

“There are some heirs who inherited specific ballets and handle the licensing of their works themselves,” Horgan says. “I represent Karin von Aroldingen, Tanaquil LeClercq, Patricia McBride and Rosemary Dunleavy as well as myself. I negotiate on their behalf.”

Horgan and Aroldingen established the George Balanchine Trust in April, 1986, after the distribution of Balanchine’s will was completed. Several other heirs then joined in the Trust. Its purpose, Horgan explains, is “to control the Balanchine rights we inherited.

“The Trust is a legal entity that allows us to make decisions with regard to when we are no longer here. We felt there should be one central organization that held the Balanchine rights, that companies would come to when they wished to acquire a ballet.”

Rights to perform a work are usually granted for two years at a time, and a rehearsal director is designated by the Trust, chosen from the elite group of Balanchine specialists who have been entrusted with staging the repertory. A rights acquisition fee and royalty amount are specified (although royalties are frequently not charged, Horgan notes), as are fees for the rehearsal director.

The individual who inherited the rights to a particular work in theory can refuse to license it to a particular company or can stipulate certain contractual conditions--concerning casting or number of performances, for example. In actuality, Horgan explains, issues such as casting are not mentioned in the licensing agreement.

“We take our cue from Mr. Balanchine, who when he licensed his ballets to companies never imposed his own personal feelings about casting,” she says.

Unsanctioned stagings of the Balanchine ballets have rarely arisen as a problem, because companies are eager to have the “seal of approval” that an official Balanchine staging represents.

New York City Ballet has a license agreement with the Trust that allows it to perform any of the ballets it chooses over the next five years. The Trust receives royalties from the company, just as Balanchine did every time one of his works was performed in his lifetime.

“Peter (Martins, co-director of the company) has the freedom to do whatever he chooses to do,” Horgan remarks. “I want to be very specific about Peter, because he understands George Balanchine, and he is very much not given credit for that.”

The License and Service Agreement prohibits any film, video or photographic recording of the Balanchine work involved other than a taping used solely for rehearsal purposes and publicity photographs, and requires that the company destroy such material upon termination of the performing rights to the ballet.

It also requires companies to include a lengthy, technical-sounding notice in all programs--the result of Horgan’s decision to register the Balanchine name, along with such terms as “Balanchine Style” and “Balanchine Technique,” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect them from abuse, particularly in commercial ventures.

This is a step Horgan was advised to take by her lawyers, part of her concern for the residuary aspects of Balanchine’s life that her duties as executor also cover.

She is concerned with the use of his name and of quotes by him. When transcripts of seminars at which dancers or colleagues quote statements made by the choreographer appear in print, Horgan requires an acknowledgement of the Trust’s permission.

Photographs have also been an area of concern for her as a possible source of copyright infringement. “A series of photos of a Balanchine ballet, published without permission of the copyright holder (of the ballet), is an infringement, because photos are part of media rights,” she says. A 1986 federal appeals court confirmed this principle.

Videotapes have also posed problems for Horgan--most notably an outfit that was selling pirated copies of numerous public television programs through a mail order catalogue.

“They were pursued by the FBI and by WNET (New York City’s public television station and originator of the broadcasts) and they were completely shut down,” Horgan reports.

The last five years have led Barbara Horgan, along with the others to whom Balanchine bequeathed his most personal riches into uncharted territories and made her something of a pioneer in the arena of choreographers’ rights.

She admits she was initially loath to take on what she knew would be a complex, burdensome responsibility, and yet she recognized the honor that Balanchine had accorded her.

“I could only hope that, when he made the will and chose me to do this, he did it out of faith and his commitment and belief in my ability,” she says.