Rachel Rutherford (born Rachel Rutherford Englund Knapp) is a former soloist with

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

. Rutherford was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, the daughter of dancer and ballet teacher Gage Bush Englund. She began her training at age eight at the

Joffrey Ballet The Joffrey Ballet is one of the premier dance companies and training institutions in the world today. Located in Chicago, Illinois, the Joffrey regularly performs classical and contemporary ballets during its annual performance season at Lyric ...

School and entered the

School of American Ballet The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the most renowned ballet school in the United States. School of American Ballet is the associate school of the New York City Ballet, a ballet company based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Ne ...

in 1987. While attending the

Chapin School Chapin School is an all-girls independent day school in New York City's Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan. History Maria Bowen Chapin opened "Miss Chapin's School for Girls and Kindergarten for Boys and Girls" in 1901. The school origi ...

, from which she eventually graduated in 1994, Rutherford also received the D.A.N.C.E. scholarship allowing her to study in Spring 1992 at the

Royal Danish Ballet The Royal Danish Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Danish Theatre in Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world and originates from 1748, when th ...

. She became an apprentice with the

the following year and joined the corps de ballet late 1995. The next Spring she appeared on the ''

Late Show with David Letterman The ''Late Show with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS, the first iteration of the ''Late Show'' franchise. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and was produced by Letterman's production c ...

''. Ms. Rutherford was promoted to soloist at the New York City Ballet in May 2002, danced that year in ''

Chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrast (vision), contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts ...

'' on the ''

Live from Lincoln Center ''Live from Lincoln Center'' is a seventeen-time Emmy Award-winning series that has broadcast notable performances from the Lincoln Center in New York City on PBS since 1976. The program airs between six and nine times per season. Episodes of '' ...

'' broadcast, ''New York City Ballet's Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography'', and again two years later dancing in ''

Concerto Barocco ''Concerto Barocco'' is a neoclassical ballet made for students at the School of American Ballet by George Balanchine, subsequently ballet master and co-founder of New York City Ballet, to Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Vi ...

'' on their ''Lincoln Center Celebrates Balanchine 100'', both on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

. She retired in 2011.

Roles

originated featured roles

Stephen Baynes

* ''

Twilight Courante Twilight is light produced by sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere, when the Sun is below the horizon, which illuminates the lower atmosphere and the Earth's surface. The word twilight can also refer to the periods of time when this il ...

Miriam Mahdaviani

* ''

Appalachia Waltz ''Appalachia Waltz'' is the first album from the trio of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, double-bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, and fiddler and composer Mark O'Connor. Sony Classical released the disc in 1996. It was recorded over three days, 14–17 Augus ...

'' * '' Urban Dances''

Angelin Preljocaj

* '' La Stravaganza''

Jerome Robbins

* '' NY Export: Opus Jazz'', NYCB premiere

Christopher Wheeldon

* ''

Carnival of the Animals ''The Carnival of the Animals'' (''Le Carnaval des animaux'') is a humorous musical suite of fourteen movements, including " The Swan", by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The work, about 25 minutes in duration, was written for priva ...

'' * ''

Carousel (A Dance) ''Carousel (A Dance)'' is a ballet made by New York City Ballet resident choreographer Christopher Wheeldon to the music of '' Carousel Waltz'' and ''If I Loved You'' (1945) by Richard Rodgers, arranged and orchestrated by William David Brohn. Th ...

''NY Times

Anna Kisselgoff Anna Kisselgoff (born 12 January 1938) is a dance critic and cultural news reporter for ''The New York Times''. She began at the ''Times'' as a dance critic and cultural news reporter in 1968, and became its Chief Dance Critic in 1977, a role she h ...

, February 25th, 2003 * ''

Slavonic Dances The ''Slavonic Dances'' ( cs, Slovanské tance) are a series of 16 orchestral pieces composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1878 and 1886 and published in two sets as Op. 46 and Op. 72 respectively. Originally written for piano four hands, t ...

originated corps roles

Eliot Feld

* ''

Organon The ''Organon'' ( grc, Ὄργανον, meaning "instrument, tool, organ") is the standard collection of Aristotle's six works on logical analysis and dialectic. The name ''Organon'' was given by Aristotle's followers, the Peripatetics. The si ...

Robert La Fosse and Robert Garland

* ''

Tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainag ...

Peter Martins

* ''

Concerti Armonici A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

'' * ''

Reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a '' shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including '' phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it is housed a ''fe ...

Jerome Robbins

* ''

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 square ...

'' * ''

West Side Story Suite ''West Side Story Suite'' is a ballet suite choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins conceived, directed and choreographed the 1957 musical '' West Side Story'', then co-directed its 1961 film adaptation, before including parts of the choreog ...

featured roles

George Balanchine

* ''

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

'' * ''

Ballo della Regina ''Ballo della Regina'' is a one-act neoclassical ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to music by Giuseppe Verdi. It is a set of variations set to ballet music (titled ''La Peregrina'') that Verdi cut from Act 3 of the original 1867 version ...

'' * ''

Chaconne A chaconne (; ; es, chacona, links=no; it, ciaccona, links=no, ; earlier English: ''chacony'') is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repe ...

'' * ''

'' * '' Divertimento No. 15'' * ''

The Firebird ''The Firebird'' (french: L'Oiseau de feu, link=no; russian: Жар-птица, Zhar-ptitsa, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's ...

'' * ''

The Four Temperaments ''The Four Temperaments'' or Theme and Four Variations (''The Four Temperaments'') is an orchestral work and ballet by Paul Hindemith. Although it was originally conceived as a ballet for Léonide Massine, the score was ultimately completed a ...

'' * ''

The Nutcracker ''The Nutcracker'' ( rus, Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik, links=no ) is an 1892 two-act ballet (""; russian: балет-феерия, link=no, ), originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaiko ...

'' * 'Jewels'' (Emeralds) * '' Liebeslieder Walzer'' * ''

A Midsummer Night’s Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...

'' * ''

Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 ''Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3'' is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and founding choreographer George Balanchine to Tschaikovsky's Suite No. 3 for Orchestra in G major, Op. 55 (1884). The premiere took place on 3 December 1970 at th ...

'' * '' La Valse'' * ''

Western Symphony ''Western Symphony'' is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and founding choreographer George Balanchine to American folk tunes arranged by Hershy Kay. It premiered on September 7, 1954 at the City Center of Music and Drama in New Y ...

'' * '' Who Cares?''

August Bournonville

* ''

Pas de Six ''Pas de Six'' is a 1936 Australian operetta that aired in November 1936. It went for an hour and was recorded in Melbourne. It won equal first prize in a 1935 Australian operetta competition held by the ABC. Premise The six principal characters ...

Miriam Mahdaviani

* ''

Correlazione ''Correlazione'' is a ballet made by Miriam Mahdaviani for New York City Ballet's Diamond Project II to Corelli's concerti grossi, Op. 6, No. 1 in D major, No. 3 in C minor, No. 8 in G minor '' (Christmas Concerto)'', and to the Sonata for Violin ...

Peter Martins

* '' The Sleeping Beauty'' * ''

Stabat Mater The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn to Mary, which portrays her suffering as Jesus Christ's mother during his crucifixion. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi or Pope Innocent III.Sabatier, Paul ''Life o ...

'' * ''Swan Lake'' * ''

Thou Swell "Thou Swell" is a show tune, a popular song and a jazz standard written in 1927. History The music was written by Richard Rodgers, with words by Lorenz Hart, for the 1927 musical '' A Connecticut Yankee''. The lyric is notable, as indicated by ...

Alexei Ratmansky

* '' Russian Seasons''

Jerome Robbins

* ''

Antique Epigraphs ''Antique Epigraphs'' is a ballet made on New York City Ballet by ballet master Jerome Robbins to an orchestrated version of Debussy's ''Six épigraphes antiques'', L131, for piano, four hands, from 1914: *“Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d' ...

'' * ''

Dances at a Gathering ''Dances at a Gathering'' is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to music by Frédéric Chopin, with costumes designed by Joe Eula. The ballet premiered on May 22, 1969, at the New York State Theater, performed by the New York City Ball ...

'' * ''

Dybbuk In Jewish mythology, a (; yi, דיבוק, from the Hebrew verb meaning 'adhere' or 'cling') is a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. It supposedly leaves the host body once it has accomplished ...

'' * ''

Fancy Free Fancy Free may refer to: Music * ''Fancy Free'' (Donald Byrd album) (1969) * ''Fancy Free'' (Richard Davis album) (1977) * ''Fancy Free'' (The Oak Ridge Boys album) (1981) Other uses * ''Fancy Free'' (ballet), a ballet by Jerome Robbins * ...

'' * ''

Fanfare A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets, French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introduction to an instrumental perfo ...

'' * '' The Four Seasons'' * ''

Glass Pieces ''Glass Pieces'' is a ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins to music by Philip Glass, costumes designed by Ben Benson, lighting designed by Ronald Bates and production designed by Robbins and Bates. The ballet was premiered on May 12, 1983, a ...

'' * '' The Goldberg Variations'' * ''

Interplay Interplay may refer to: * Interplay (John Coltrane album), ''Interplay'' (John Coltrane album), 1957 * Interplay (Bill Evans album), ''Interplay'' (Bill Evans album), 1962 * Interplay (Al Haig album), ''Interplay'' (Al Haig album), 1976 * Interpla ...

'' * '' In the Night''

Lynne Taylor-Corbett

* ''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutherford, Rachel New York City Ballet soloists American ballerinas Artists from New York City Year of birth missing (living people) School of American Ballet alumni Joffrey Ballet School alumni Living people