Dances Patrelle (dP) announces with great sorrow the passing of its beloved founder, Francis Patrelle. He passed at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL, in the afternoon on December 27, 2025.
Francis Patrelle was born on May 10, 1947, to Elvira and Joseph Patrelle. He grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, before moving to New York City to study at The Juilliard School, where he trained under the renowned Sir Antony Tudor.
Patrelle began teaching ballet in the 1970s and continued for four decades. He served as dance director at USDAN for over ten years and briefly taught at Barnard College. Yet the two institutions he cherished most were Manhattan School of Music, where he spent decades guiding opera students in movement and dance, and Ballet Academy East.
As a teacher, Patrelle was legendary. His classes were deeply musical and rigorously challenging, delivered with genuine care and affection for his students. He never looked down on them; instead, he embraced them fully – as his people, his family.
Dances Patrelle began in 1987 as a showplace for Francis’ gifts. By that time, he had already choreographed numerous ballets for the Albany Berkshire Ballet and served as choreographer for Hal Prince’s production of Turandot at the Vienna State Opera. Yet Patrelle sought a space to create works that were entirely his own.
Patrelle’s ballets center on people. The characters in his works possess rich inner lives, complete with hopes, dreams, and complexities. They can be wicked, cruel, underhanded, or devious, yet above all, they yearn for love. They grapple with authentic human struggles, illuminating the shared challenges and emotions that define our common humanity.
A list of Francis works must include MacBeth, What Do We Do About Mother?, Black Forest Carousel, Glad to Be Unhappy, Romeo and Juliet, Rhapsody in Blue, American Overture, Madame X, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Ballet!, and of course The Yorkville Nutcracker. Cynthia Gregory, Jenifer Ringer, James Fayette, Lourdes Lopez, Jock Soto, Abi Stafford, Marcelo Gomes, Donald Williams, Tyler Angle, Miriam Miller, Jared Angle, Ask La Cour, and so many other great names of ballet returned to work with Francis on numerous projects.
Francis was a great collaborator. He worked for years with costume designer Rita Watson, lighting designer David Grill, and set designer Gillian Bradshaw-Smith, the people he credited with the look of his work. He collaborated on four ballets with composer Patrick Soluri, including what he thought was his masterwork, Madame X. He collaborated with author Justin Allen on three ballets, including Gilbert and Sullivan, The Ballet!, which he considered his greatest crowd-pleasing success.
Francis leaves behind no children, no husband. His ballets, his dancers, his students, his audience – these were his great loves and his family.
Donations may be made in his honor to Dances Patrelle here.
For more information about Dances Patrelle, visit https://www.dancespatrelle.org/
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