IB ANDERSEN TO HEAD BALLET ARIZONA.

IB ANDERSEN has been named artistic director of Ballet Arizona, effective June 1, 2000. Andersen, 45, a former principal dancer with both New York City Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet, created leading roles in several Balanchine ballets, including Mozartiana and Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze. Andersen had been pursuing a freelance career as a choreographer and stager since his retirement from dancing in 1990; he was also ballet master at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre from 1994 to 1996.

Andersen succeeds Michael Uthoff, who resigned suddenly last July, a year before his contract expired, after a controversy involving the company's finances and management (see Dance Magazine, October 1999). In October 1999, executive director Gray Montague also resigned, leaving the company with neither an artistic nor executive director (the search for an executive director continues). The company was in dire financial straits, at one point unable to meet its payroll.

"We're on our way back up now," said Kim Sterling, a board member and co-chair of the search committee, which conducted a six-month search before settling on Andersen. The company received several applications and "the caliber was quite high," Sterling said. She remembered that the last time the company was in need of a director, the board had to call other companies for recommendations. In addition to Andersen, finalists included choreographer Kevin O'Day and Bryan Pitts, director of Ballet Oklahoma.

Ballet Arizona has twenty-four dancers and a thirty-week season that features Nutcracker and three repertory programs yearly. Andersen had been working with the company, teaching class and staging Apollo, and his appointment was literally applauded by the dancers when he walked into the studio the day after the news went public. His appointment and his professional stature have buoyed the company's fund-raisers, who plan to conduct a long-term fund drive, said Richard Nosky, co-chairman of the search committee, in a statement to the Arizona Republic.

Although Andersen has choreographed more than a dozen ballets for companies in America, Europe and Japan, he doesn't intend to make Ballet Arizona a one-choreographer company, nor a satellite of any other troupe. "I think the company should have its own face, but to find that will take some time," he said.

Ballet Arizona's board chose Andersen in part because "he presented the clearest artistic vision," Sterling said. That vision? "I want ballets that move people and leave them with something," Andersen said. "It will be a mixed repertory based in the classical tradition, with new choreography that is made on these dancers."