Jennie Somogyi was born in Easton, lived in Alpha and Pohatcong Township and danced for the New York City Ballet for 22 years.
Jennie Somogyi feels like she has lived three lifetimes in 38 years.
The New York City Ballet principal dancer was born in Easton. She will retire from the company after a 22-year career. Her final performance will take place 3 p.m. Oct. 11 at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.
She will perform George Balanchine's "Liebeslieder Walzer."
Somogyi has danced leading roles from the company's ballets by George Balanchine, August Bournonville, Ulysses Dove, Peter Martins, Jerome Robbins, Richard Tanner and Lynne Taylor-Corbett. She has also had roles in works by Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, Stephen Baynes, Miriam Mahdaviani, Kevin O'Day and Susan Stroman.
In 2002, Somogyi performed in the "Live From Lincoln Center" broadcast of "New York City Ballet's Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography," dancing in Taylor-Corbett's "Chiaroscuro" and O'Day's "Viola Alone." In 2002 the Princess Grace Foundation awarded her its highest honor, the Statue Award. She received the Mae L. Wien Award and the Martin E. Segal Award.
Somogyi has balanced her career in New York City with her family life in Pohatcong Township.
When she was 20, she bought a house on the Delaware River in the Warren County community. She lives there now with her husband and daughter. She married Brian Fallon at age 23, while establishing her career and traveling to study with choreographers around the world.
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Fallon is a police officer in Bernards Township, N.J. He is originally from Lopatcong Township. Their daughter Madelyn Fallon, 7, is a second-grader at Pohatcong Township Elementary School.
Prior to 2013, Somogyi's life was truly a balancing act. She stayed in her city apartment depending on her work schedule, sometimes coming home on the bus at 1 a.m. to see her family later that morning.
Somogyi, 38, was raised in Alpha.
"Everything in my life has happened early," she said. "I've done so much. I feel like I'm older."
Somogyi's life on stage
Somogyi sold her New York apartment in 2013 after her third and final major injury. She injured a tendon on her left foot, while performing a pas de deux in "Swan Lake."
She had torn and shredded the same tendon in 2004, while performing the lead in Tschaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 2." Doctors removed half the tendon and were not sure if she could dance again. She took a year and a half to recover. She also ruptured the Achilles tendon on her right foot in 2012, while performing a pas de deux in "Polyphonia."
The injury in 2013 confirmed that her career was coming to an end, she said. A doctor gave her a cadaver tendon and reconstructed her ankle.
"Twenty-two years for a professional athlete is a pretty long time," she said. "I knew that I if I was going back to dance, I would be ending it on a positive note ... a happy ending."
As the principal dancer, Somogyi is constantly front and center on stage. To this day, she manages her stage fright but has not overcome it. When she was younger, she was on the verge of being nauseous because of it, she said. She has gained more perspective since then.
She recalls her injury in 2012 as the most dramatic because the audience heard it. She lost her peripheral vision and hearing.
"I wish [the injuries] could have happened in a rehearsal studio instead of in front of thousands of people," she said.
During her last major injury in 2013, she was dancing with her partner. Just the two of them graced the stage. The injury happened on the very last step, she said.
"When we finished and the audience applauded, I said to my partner, 'My tendon is gone!'"
As gracefully as possible, he guided her off the stage.
George Balanchine's "Liebeslieder Walzer" is a meaningful choice for her last performance, she said. Balanchine is the founder of the New York City Ballet company.
The ballet has two sections. The first section showcases a ballroom atmosphere, including singers and piano accompaniment. The dancers wear ballroom gowns.
Somogyi will participate in a little party on stage, performing with a few of her friends, she said.
The curtain drops, then the dancers change into ethereal costumes. The dancers return as spirits. Finally, they finish the ballet as people dressed in ballroom gowns again.
"It seems fitting as a person from this sort of ethereal world," she said. "People look at ballerinas as we are sort of creatures. People hold us to a different standard.
"When my friends from the Lehigh Valley come to the ballet they say, 'I cannot believe that was you. You have this whole other personality we didn't know about.'"
Somogyi's childhood
Fittingly, Somogyi's first major performance with the School of American Ballet was performing the leading role to "The Nutcracker," also by George Balanchine.
She began her ballet training at age 7 with Madame Nina Youshkevitch. Somogyi entered the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, at age 9. She became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in 1993 and a member of the corps de ballet in 1994.
She was promoted to soloist in 1998 and to principal dancer in 2000.
Somogyi said she owes her initial success to her grandmother's best friend, Rosie Skrapits.
Skrapits, who lived in Allentown, observed Somogyi dancing around the house and was impressed by her talent. The older woman insisted on driving Somogyi from Alpha to New York City once a week to pay for her classes with Madame Nina.
Skrapits made a deal with Somogyi's parents, Charles and Gloria Somogyi, of Alpha. If Somogyi did not get accepted to the School of American Ballet, she would stop pursuing dance so rigorously.
Skrapits took her to the School of American Ballet, where she got accepted on a full scholarship. From ages 9 to 15, Somogyi stayed with a family friend in an apartment in New York City and came home to Alpha on the weekends.
Potential future as a dance coach
Taking time to potentially teach dance classes would help her pay tribute to the people in her childhood who helped begin her career, she said.
While her professional dancing days are over, she is exploring the possibility of coaching dance.
"I'm just trying to keep an open mind," she said. "I've spent 22 years in a very structured profession. I don't want to rush into anything I'm not passionate about."
Her school would focus solely in ballet, providing world-class, intense, structured training for young people looking for a career in ballet.
She said she would consider teaching in the Lehigh Valley, possibly Easton.
"The area has come a long way as far as the arts recently," she said. "I think that there would be an audience for it. But I would need to find the right space and bring in the right flooring."
As a naturally active person, dance helps her express herself without words. Teaching could help young girls do the same, she said. Dancing has not kept her young, rather guided her down a road of many lifetimes, she said.
"I had this innate gift. That's not going to go away," she said. "Once a dancer, always a dancer. I can dance in my living room if I want to."
She looks forward to the next chapter, considering it her fourth lifetime to spend with her family and possible dance students.
"I've always maintained a separate life from my work life. A lot of people I work with have to really put their lives on hold. I really worked hard to maintain that balance," she said.
"It's not scary for me to leave. I'm excited to move on to the next chapter."
Sienna Mae Heath is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook.