American Repertory Ballet/ARB's Princeton Ballet School

Graham Lustig

Artistic Director

Now celebrating his 10th year as Artistic Director of the American Repertory Ballet and ARB’s Princeton Ballet School, Graham Lustig is an internationally recognized director and choreographer whose work has been performed on four continents, Since joining American Repertory Ballet, Mr. Lustig has introduced numerous new ballets to the repertoire by choreographers such as Twyla Tharp, Dominique Dumais, Val Caniparoli and Kirk Peterson.

In 2001 Mr. Lustig launched Dancing Through The Ceiling, a groundbreaking initiative dedicated to showcasing the work of classically based women choreographers and to date, 12 new ballets have been commissioned. Many of his own productions further contribute to American Repertory Ballet’s repertoire including The Nutcracker, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Beauty and the Beast – A Gothic Romance. For ARB’s Princeton Ballet School he has choreographed productions of Don Quixote, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

Mr. Lustig has also directed and choreographed for opera, theatre and film, including Eugene Onegin, Cleveland Opera, Aida, Boheme Opera of New Jersey, Carmen, Princeton Festival, plus collaborations with Christopher Nupen on the biographical film, Tchaikovsky’s Women, and with Robert Allen Ackerman on the award-winning production of When She Danced starring Vanessa Redgrave.

Formerly dancing as a soloist with both Dutch National Ballet and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, Mr. Lustig performed a diverse selection of leading roles in works by Ashton, McMillan, De Valois, Cranko and van Dantzig, as well as Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, Profiteer in Kurt Joos’s Green Table, Willie Mossop in Bintley’s Hobson’s Choice and Fokine’s Petrushka.

Since joining American Repertory Ballet, Mr. Lustig has been actively engaged in a variety of collaborations in the New Jersey community including DANCE POWER, a program that teaches dance to every New Brunswick School third-grader. Mr. Lustig is a charter member of the Artists Council for Americans for the Arts and has served numerous times as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. In the 2008-2009 season his premieres include Fanfare for Singapore Dance Theatre, Between Stillness for Louisville Ballet, Shadows in the Attic for American Repertory Ballet and West Side Story, which he both directed and choreographed, for Boheme Opera of New Jersey. His ballet Evening was featured in the 2008 Singapore Arts Festival.

Bat Abbit

Ballet Master

Bat Abbit’s professional career began with the Nashville Ballet followed by the North Carolina Dance Theatre where, as a soloist he performed leading roles in works by Paul Taylor, David Parsons, Peter Pucci, and George Balanchine. He also performed works by Salvatore Aiello, most notably Fritz in The Nutcracker, and Miles in The Turn of the Screw. When leaving North Carolina Dance Theatre, Mr. Abbit was given a royalty free license for Tarantella by noted New York City Ballet ballerina Patricia McBride for whom the legendary George Balanchine created the ballet.

Upon joining the American Repertory Ballet in 2000, he performed the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cadenza, Borderlines, Paramour, Urban Tangos, Autumn in Cinderella, and created roles in Silkscreens, as well as the roles of Fritz and the Nutcracker in Graham Lustig’s The Nutcracker. Mr. Abbit joined the Artistic Staff of the American Repertory Ballet in 2003 as a Ballet Master.

For American Repertory Ballet Mr. Abbit has choreographed Vertical Time, a site-specific work performed at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey as well as two ballets for young audiences Jump, Frog, Jump! and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He serves as a faculty member for ARB’s Princeton Ballet School’s Summer Intensive where he teaches and has choreographed numerous works.

He has assisted in the staging of Salvatore Aiello’s Rite of Spring, Graham Lustig’s Evening for Singapore Dance Theatre, mounted his own production of Coppelia for Carolina Ballet, and choreographed Bending Towards the Light, A Jazz Nativity for audiences in New York and New Jersey. His pas de deux, Into the Light, won the Nashville Dance Project’s Choreographers’ Competition.

Mr. Abbit has further performed in a variety of musical productions including the role of Billy Lawlor in 42nd Street, the Fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof, Damn Yankees, South Pacific, and Music Man.

As a teacher Mr. Abbit has served on the faculties of the School of the Nashville Ballet, Vanderbilt University, Western Kenutcky University, DancePlace the official school of the North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. Mr. Abbit holds a BFA from Western Kentucky University.

Kathleen Moore

Ballet Mistress

Kathleen Moore born in Chicago, Illinois, was raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She began dance lessons at a local ballet school and then studied dance seriously with Dame Sonia Arova during high school at the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). Kathleen also attended summer sessions in New York, at the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre School, before graduating from ASFA as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and moving to New York as a member of American Ballet Theatre’s junior company, ABT II. (1980).

Miss Moore joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in 1982, was appointed Soloist by Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1988, and Principal Dancer in 1991. Her roles with ABT were many, working in the classics as well as the dramatic and modern repertory. Her repertory includes Myrta in Giselle, Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon, Hagar in Pillar of Fire, The Cowgirl in Rodeo, a Stomper in In the Upper Room, and principle roles in works by Mark Morris, Paul Taylor, Jiri Kylian and Glen Tetley.

Miss Moore created the role of The Girl in The Informer by Agnes de Mille, leading roles in Mark Morris’ Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes and in Twyla Tharp’s How Near Heaven and Jump Start.

She was a member of the premiere tour of the White Oak Dance Project under the direction of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Mark Morris in 1990 and has appeared in several dance documentaries and the Herbert Ross movie Dancers.

In 1988 Miss Moore married Peter Tovar, in 1997 she gave birth to a son, Becket, and retired from dancing professionally in the fall of 1998. She currently lives in Princeton, is on faculty at the Princeton School of Ballet and served as a member of the Executive Committee for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra Board for several years.