{"id":12292,"date":"2021-07-08T15:15:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T15:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=12292"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:23","slug":"nora-kimball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/07\/08\/nora-kimball\/","title":{"rendered":"Nora Kimball"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nora Kimball<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Eliot Feld Ballet (1975)<\/strong>
\nStuttgart Ballet: Soloist (1975-1981)<\/strong>
\nNederlands Dans Theater (1981-ca. 1985)<\/strong>
\nFrankfurt Ballet<\/strong>
\nAmerican Ballet Theatre: Soloist<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"Nora
Photo via Op\u00e9ra national de Paris<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nora Koito Kimball-Mentzos, an African- and Asian-American dancer, was born in Brooklyn, New York ca. 1957 and grew up in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kimball did not feel passionate about ballet until late in her training. She began dancing at age 11 at the National Academy of Ballet under Thalia Mara, but only attended class \u201cbecause [she] wanted to hang around [her] older sister.\u201d This sister is Christina Kumi Kimball, who performed on Broadway and with George Faison and Alvin Ailey.<\/div>\n
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At the Harkness House for Ballet Arts, Rebekah Harkness provided funding for Kimball\u2019s tuition, ballet clothes, and academic education. Kimball also studied at the American Ballet Theatre School with Zena Rommett.<\/p>\n

Still unsure about what career path she wanted to take, Kimball attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. She spent her senior year, 1975, performing with Eliot Feld Ballet and auditioned for Stuttgart Ballet while the company was on tour in the States. Though Feld was angry she was leaving, at 17 years old, Kimball joined the German company, then under the directorship of Glen Tetley. She believes she was accepted at such an early age because the company \u201cwanted someone to mold.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kimball eventually reached the rank of soloist but left Stuttgart in 1981, when she joined the Nederlands Dans Theater. Here, she performed Ji\u0159\u00ed Kyli\u00e1n\u2019s Songs of Wayfarer<\/em>, November Steps<\/em>, and Svadebka<\/em> (Les Noces<\/em>), among other pieces.<\/p>\n

She then contacted Sir Kenneth MacMillan, who set up a meeting with Mikhail Baryshnikov, artistic director of American Ballet Theatre. After seeing Kimball dance in Paris, Baryshnikov offered her a contract upon her return to the US.<\/p>\n

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From left to right: Clark Tippet, Nora Kimball, and Robert Hill, rehearsing for Enough Said<\/em>. Photo by Martha Swope, 1987<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometimes credited as the second African American female soloist at ABT, Kimball may be the first, as one of her predecessors Anne Benna Sims<\/a>, who was said to be a soloist, remained in the corps de ballet.<\/p>\n

While with ABT, Clark Tippet choreographed a principal role in his first ballet Enough Said<\/em> on Kimball.<\/p>\n

Kimball also danced with the Frankfurt Ballet and worked with choreographers like William Forsythe, Karole Armitage, and Peter Sellars. She starred in Peter Sellars\u2019 revival of The Seven Deadly Sins<\/em> at the Lyon Opera and, this time under the stage direction of Sellars, was one of three solo dancers in an \u201copera-oratorio\u201d El Ni\u00f1o<\/em>, performing this in Paris and San Francisco. Kimball appeared in David Gordon\u2019s 1987 production Made in U.S.A<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kimball has taught for the Zena Rommett Floor Barre Technique and the Hochschule f\u00fcr Musik und Darstellende Kunst. She has \u201ccreated workshops that enable children to explore physical expression through dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to her extensive and successful dance career, Kimball has also modeled for Issey Miyake.<\/p>\n

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