ABOUT
Talmi Entertainment has been showcasing the best of international dance in the US and Canada since 1972. An unparalleled track record of integrity has made Talmi Entertainment a leading force in the arts community. As a highly specialized agency, Talmi Entertainment is an industry leader in the event marketing practices and production elements surrounding live performance. Talmi Entertainment regularly packages national tours from conception to execution on all levels.
Whether you are a presenter, independent promoter or world class venue, Talmi Entertainment can deliver a 5-star production every time with supplemental support to make sure your event succeeds.
For details about booking or marketing and production services call or email
Dan Talmi
dan@talmientertainment.com
800.320.1733
PRODUCING DIRECTORS
DAN TALMI
Dan Talmi has led the Talmi Entertainment producing team of the 140+ city annual North American tour for several years. Talmi produces the annual Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet tour consisting of three International companies of award-winning dancers, creative team, and road team touring simultaneously from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada. Under his leadership the company consistently presents Award-Winning dancers and sells out leading venues in Brooklyn, Detroit, St Louis, Los Angeles and more. Producer Dan Talmi has plenty of show business experience in his blood. In addition to the influence of his Juilliard School-trained parents, Talmi graduated from Sage Colleges of Albany and joined the family business. In 2011, Talmi was asked to be judge at the St Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in their first annual “Ballet Art Juried Exhibition” held in anticipation of the 150th anniversary of the prestigious conservatory. In 2014 Talmi created the concept for and produced the national touring show “Circus Electronica.” He is now Producer of the annual, 140+ city North American Tour of Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet and other story ballets. The highly popular tour brings the holiday spirit to more than 200,000 theatre-goers nationwide.
AKIVA TALMI
Akiva Talmi is Founder of Talmi Entertainment (TE, Inc.) which specializes in producing fine art tours and special events marketing. During his 40 year career, Talmi has included presidential daughters in Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s “Dance with Us” program, presented several events at Washington DC’s National Press Club and has been instrumental in building the careers of dancers including Alexander Godunov, Charmaine Hunter, Cynthia Gregory, Valentina Kozlova and more. A graduate in music from The Juilliard School, he is a recipient of the Metropolitan Opera Guild Award, Richard Rogers Award (5 times in 5 years), Leonard Bernstein Award, and the AICF Award – Isaac Stern, President. He composed the score for feature length films “Two” (CoImar), “Longest Journey” (Columbia), and for Connecticut Public TV’s “Carnival” and “From the Top.” Talmi founded TE, Inc. in New York City in 1980. The management offices are now located in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Talmi created and produced the 1974 TV program “From the Top” starring renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman and NYC Ballet star Violette Verdy for CPTV and with Yale Repertory Theater’s Obie Award winning playwright Lonnie Carter. UCT provided Dr Puppet Master Frank Ballard and WGBH provided innovative film/video director Fred Barzyk. In 1981, Talmi introduced Americans to Russia’s ballet star Alexander Godunov in The Alexander Godunov Retrospective Ballet Tour throughout the USA. In 1983 Talmi produced “From Bolshoi to Broadway” starring Bolshoi Ballet artists Leonid Kozlov and Valentina Kozlova. Later Talmi secured the starring role in the Broadway revival of “On Your Toes” for Ms. Kozlova and subsequently principal dancer positions for both Kozlovs with NYC Ballet under George Balanchine. In 1983 and 1984 the “Silk, Satin and Denim” tour starred Valentina Kozlova, Nina Fedorova of New York City Ballet and featured the Haute Couture designs of Ungaro, Christian Dior, Pauline Trigere, Oleg Cassini, Donna Karan, and Michael Kors. “The Cynthia Gregory Celebration Tour” in 1984 starred America’s Prima Ballerina Cynthia Gregory on a 34-city tour. As sponsors of this national tour, US President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan invited Ms. Gregory and Mr. Talmi to the White House for the first official State Dinner on cultural events. Future First Lady Roselyn Carter and Vice-Presidential wife Tipper Gore served as honorary chairpersons for subsequent tours.
1992 saw the collapse of the “Iron Curtain” in Russia, the rise of independent ballet companies, and the origin of Talmi’s International Glasnost Festival Tours. The production traveled to many American cities and featured stars from the Bolshoi Ballet, Kirov Ballet, National Ballets of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and People’s Republic of China. Accompanying seminars were presented at Yale, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Purdue, and Vanderbilt Universities. In the early 90s, Talmi’s “Russian Ballet Performances,” performed at the Washington Constitutional Hall with orchestra, was aired on the national PBS TV stations and in 1993 the Great Russian Nutcracker toured for the first time with a troupe of 80 award-winning dancers from top Russian schools including Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Perm and Vaganova. Talmi continues to tour Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet annually presenting classic Russian story ballets Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and more.
MARY GIANNONE TALMI
Mary Giannone holds a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and is co-founder and co-producer of Talmi Entertainment. She received two Choreography Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Achievement Award in Choreography from Massachusetts Council on the Arts and was selected for the American Ballet Theatre’s Choreography Workshop under Mikhail Baryshnikov. Two of the works she created for Albany Berkshire Ballet, “Celebration” and “Concerto”, are included in the National Choreography Plan. Giannone founded Connecticut Dance Theatre, a modern dance repertory company which specialized in the reconstruction of the works of Doris Humphrey, has choreographed for Albany Berkshire Ballet since 1972, and was a significant force in the Regional Dance America movement. Giannone’s choreographic work was featured for 13 consecutive years at the Northeast Regional Dance Conference Gala Nights. In SummerDance ‘95 her fast-paced “Temple Caves” received critical acclaim. She choreographed for Dayton Ballet, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet II, and the Jacob’s Pillow Dancers. Giannone taught at Boston Ballet, Wright State, Ohio State, Vassar College, and Walnut Hill School.
Mary and Akiva Talmi created and presented several significant education programs in addition to producing annual North American ballet tours. The commitment to delivering hands-on programming for American children began in 1972 when, as directors of Connecticut Dance Theatre, they invited co-artistic director of Dance Theater of Harlem (DTH) Karel Shook, to work with their North End Dance Troupe in Hartford, CT. Shook invited several Hartford students to study at DTH on scholarship, among them was Charmaine Hunter, who went on to became DTH’s 2nd Prima Ballerina and star of Arthur Mitchell’s Fire Bird. Other programs include: General Motors sponsored “New Horizons” interactive program presented over a semester in 13 public elementary schools in San Antonio; “Russian Cultural Ballet” program which was produced nationally in nine museums and art institutions; and “Cinderella Around the World” dance and literacy program, to name some of Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet’s educational outreach. On a collegiate level, the Talmis presented the “First International Glasnost Festival Tours” from 1987-92 which starred artists from the Bolshoi, Kirov, Hungarian, and more world class ballet companies. The tours included symposiums, film screenings, poetry readings, master classes and speakers, including Kirov’s Emeritus Artistic Director Oleg Vinogradov, for students in universities including Dartmouth, Yale, Middlebury, and Vanderbilt and for the public.