Congrats To Meaghan Dutton-O'Hara

This afternoon I got the chance to attend the presentation of the 2011 Martin E. Segal Awards. This year’s recipients included School of American Ballet Student Meaghan Dutton O’Hara as well as filmmaker Laura Poitras. Each received $7,500 to advance their careers.

The Segal Awards have been given to outstanding young artists from Lincoln Center’s institutions for the past 25 years. Former recipients, including New York City Ballet’s Jonathan and Abi Stafford and Daniel Ulbricht, were in attendance today to show their support for the special anniversary.

In a speech presenting Dutton-O’Hara with the award, Reynold Levy quoted SAB co-chairman Kay Mazzo as saying that Meaghan arrived at the school in 2007 looking like she was “all legs and braces.” (She’s still pretty much all legs, but has ditched the braces.) Dutton-O’Hara grew up in Maryland, and trained at the Frederick School of Classical Ballet until she moved to NYC at 13. She’s now in the school’s most advanced girls’ class and currently serves as a teaching assistant to Darci Kistler and Lisa deRibere’s beginning ballet classes for 6-year-olds at SAB. You can catch her performing Balanchine’s Who Cares? June 4 and 7 at SAB’s annual Workshop Performance.