A Celebration of a Life

By Jennifer Dunning
New York Times Connecticut Section
Sunday, October 24, 2004

Most New York City Ballet dancers are staying put in these crucial weeks before the company opens its winter season at Lincoln Center. But a group of City Ballet stars will be traveling to New Haven for a special, one-night gala performance on Oct. 30 at the Shubert Theater. That night, they will join with the Elm City Girls Choir, one of the Northeast's best-known choruses, to celebrate the life and work of Kathleen A. Sullivan.

Ms. Sullivan, who died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 48, was a clinical professor of law at the Yale Law School. She specialized in training young lawyers to work with the poor and disadvantaged, as she did at the start of her career and continued to do, establishing with her students a wide range of pragmatic New Haven-area programs that both benefit and engage the disadvantaged.
  
"I know that Kathleen Sullivan loved the ballet," said Nilas Martins, a principal dancer with City Ballet, in a recent interview. "When I met her husband, Stephen, I got the impression that a performance like this would have been something Kathleen would wish for. It's a beautiful thing, to have this performance in her honor. Maybe it could be an annual event."

Mr. Martins and James Fayette, another City Ballet principal who will perform in the gala, put together a program of dance that includes classical and modern ballets and excerpts. They consulted with Ms. Sullivan's husband, Stephen C. Robinson, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, and their 14-yearold daughter, Victoria. The judge and Victoria have continued to attend City Ballet together on the Friday night subscription that he and Ms. Sullivan began.
  
Both father and daughter were eager to have the lyrical and luminous City Ballet star Darci Kistler perform. Ms. Kistler will dance the "White Swan Pas de Deux" from "Swan Lake," with Jock Soto.
  
Also on the program are a concert version of "Who Cares?," George Balanchine's joyous celebration of the music of George Gershwin, and duets from ballets by Balanchine, William Forsythe and Peter Martins. Mr. Martins began work on the program in April with the idea that the gala should feature "a little bit of everything." The performers also include Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, Jenifer Ringer and Peter Boal.
 
The gala is being produced by the Kathleen A. Sullivan Fund, part of the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, which was founded by Judge Robinson and his daughter. Proceeds of the performance, and a silent and live auction that night, will go to the fund to pay for scholarships for disadvantaged children to music, dance and art classes in New Haven, and for membership in the choir.
 
The proceeds will also be used for a grant to a graduating Yale Law School student who will work on behalf of the needy, and for college scholarships for graduating seniors from Wilbur Cross High School in the Elizabeth Celotto Child Care Center, which was founded by Ms. Sullivan to encourage pregnant high school students to continue their education and learn about parenting in the school setting.
 
Three hundred tickets have been set aside for families and children who could not otherwise afford to see the performance. The top-price tickets, which are $150, include attendance at a cocktail reception hosted by Senator Christopher Dodd and an auction of items ranging from massages and fruit baskets to house seats to City Ballet performances to a week at a spa in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The benefit takes place on Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Shubert neater, 247 College Street, New Haven. Tickets: $60 to $150. Information: (203) 562-5666 or www.shubert.com.