Transcending her administrative role, Gleboff came to be known as a spokesman with parents and students, a mentor to staff and a perceptive planner, especially in the school's move to its current home on West 65th Street in New York, reads a statement on the school's website.
She was the last of the women of Russian background hired by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein to run the school or its various activities since its founding in 1934, reports The New York Times.
"[She brought] a perfect blend of dynastic order and New World energy to carry out the basic principles set by Balanchine decades ago," Kirstein once said. "The school, like the company, was always run like a benevolent dictatorship, a practical philosophy that maintained necessary discipline while allowing sufficient flexibility for work to proceed in orderly progression. Mme. Gleboff, by turns quartermaster, first lieutenant, and supreme commander, quietly oversees this operation with imperturbable logic and great good grace."