New York City Ballet is one of the world’s foremost dance companies with an unparalleled repertory of ballets including something for everyone. The Company was established in 1948 by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein and quickly became known for its pure neo-classicism. NYCB performs at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, which was designed by Balanchine and Philip Johnson specifically for NYCB. The Company has nearly 100 dancers, a 62 member orchestra, and an annual 21-week season at Lincoln Center. With an energy that matches that of the bustling metropolis it calls home, it’s the quintessential NYC experience.
Masters At Work
SEPT 17, 18, 20, 21 mat, 26
George Balanchine ballets choreographed to music from two composers he revered—Tschaikovsky and Stravinsky—share a program with one of Jerome Robbins’ most beloved works. Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, originally created in 1941 as Ballet Imperial, remains among Balanchine’s most opulently beautiful works, endlessly rich in its exploration of classical technique as epitomized by the Russian school at its height. Duo Concertant, by contrast, is among his more minimalist ballets, a pas de deux that includes interplay between the dancers and the onstage pianist and violinist. And Robbins’ Glass Pieces is a continuously mesmerizing dance set to a pulsating, hypnotic score by the contemporary master Philip Glass.
All Peck
SEPT 24, OCT 3, 12 eve, 13
NYCB marks Justin Peck’s tenth year as resident choreographer with this selection of some of his finest works, displaying both his versatility and his musicality. The program includes his first dance for the Company, In Creases, from 2012, an ensemble piece set to music by Philip Glass. As its title indicates, Solo was choreographed for a single dancer, and made its debut as a short film directed by Sofia Coppola during the pandemic. Partita is one of Peck’s signature sneaker ballets, inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning a capella composition, which was in turn a tribute to the painter Sol LeWitt, whose daughter, Eva LeWitt, provided the designs. The program concludes with Peck's exuberant Everywhere We Go, celebrating his enduring collaboration with the composer Sufjan Stevens.
Balanchine + Ratmansky
SEPT 25, OCT 1, 2, 4, 8, 10
A trio of classic dances by Balanchine joins a favorite from Alexei Ratmansky. Mozartiana, one of Balanchine’s late works, weaves an elegiac spell with its austerely beautiful black costuming and pellucid classical choreography. Two dances set to Stravinsky, the elegant, neoclassical Monumentum pro Gesualdo and the spiky, arrestingly unique Movements for Piano and Orchestra, always make for a stimulating pairing. And Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH, set to a piano concerto by one of his favorite composers, Dmitri Shostakovich, ranks among the dancemaker's most exuberant and energetic works.
In honor of the School of American Ballet’s 90th Anniversary, SAB advanced students will perform Balanchine’s Serenade in place of Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra on OCT 1.
Coppélia
SEPT 27, 28 mat & eve, 29, OCT 5 mat & eve, 6
The rare full-length ballet highlighted by generous doses of comedy, Coppélia returns to the repertory to mark the 50th anniversary of Balanchine’s 1974 staging. Drawing on the Petipa production, Balanchine collaborated with the great Russian dancer Alexandra Danilova, renowned for her performance in the central role of Swanilda, to bring this 19th-century staple to renewed life. The playful premise: The inventor Dr. Coppélius creates a life-sized doll whose eerie charms entrance the village youth Franz, amusing his beloved Swanilda, who hatches a plot to impersonate the doll and hoodwink her love. Rich in classical choreography infused with high spirits, the ballet has remained in the international repertory ever since its debut.
Contemporary Choreography
OCT 11, 12 mat
The first ballet created for the Company by Principal Dancer Tiler Peck, Concerto for Two Pianos, named after the melodic Poulenc score, delighted audiences at its premiere in the winter of 2024 with its sweeping energy and effortless elegance. The dance returns accompanied by two pieces new to the repertory, notably comprising NYCB’s first program of ballets all choreographed by women. Signs was created by Gianna Reisen for the School of American Ballet’s annual Workshop Performances in 2022 to selections of music from Philip Glass. Completing the program is the world premiere of a ballet by Caili Quan, a former BalletX dancer whose work draws on her heritage as a Filipina and a member of the Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands, which include Guam, where Quan grew up.
George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®
Nov 29, 2024–Jan 04, 2025
During the holiday period, the entire Company is immersed in activities surrounding George Balanchine's The Nutcracker®. All 90 dancers, 62 musicians, 40 stagehands, and more than 125 children in two alternating casts from the School of American Ballet join forces to make each performance as magical as possible.
Audiences of all ages are sure to be captivated by the lure of Tschaikovsky's music, Balanchine's choreography, Karinska's sumptuous costumes, and Rouben Ter-Arutunian's magical sets. Based on the Alexandre Dumas père version of E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816), George Balanchine's The Nutcracker® is one of the most complex ballets in the Company's active repertory and provides an unforgettable spark to the holiday season.
All Balanchine I
JAN 21, 23, 25 mat & eve, FEB 1 mat
Balanchine’s multifaceted talent is showcased in a program uniting three classic works. Concerto Barocco, from 1941, is set to Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, and features crystalline choreography for the two lead ballerinas, each representing the voice of one violin, as well as a male dancer and a small corps de ballet. For Allegro Brillante Balanchine returned to a favorite composer, Tschaikovsky, to create a scintillating dance that combines lyricism and buoyancy. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet features a cast of more than 50 dancers in a ballet that, in four distinct movements, pays homage to the Romantic era as epitomized by Brahms’s music, filtered through the distinct modernist style of Arnold Schoenberg.
All Stravinsky
JAN 22, 24, 26, 28, FEB 1 eve, 4
A program devoted to works set to music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky is highlighted by two unique Jerome Robbins gems: The Cage, which depicts a swarm of insect-like female creatures descending upon their unwitting male prey, and Concertino, a trio that was originally performed as the third section of Robbins’ Four Chamber Works. Balanchine’s Danses Concertantes, a spirited ballet with richly detailed costumes and hints of commedia dell’arte-inspired humor, opens the program, and his classic leotard ballet Stravinsky Violin Concerto, one of Balanchine’s greatest achievements, brings the affair to a rousing finish.
New Combinations
JAN 29, 30, 31, FEB 2
The annual program celebrating Balanchine’s birthday traditionally features a world premiere, in this case the 25th dance from Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor Justin Peck, for which Dan Deacon will be providing a commissioned score. The program opens with Christopher Wheeldon’s From You Within Me, set to Arnold Schoenberg’s early work Verkläkte Nacht, featuring a cast of a dozen dancers and painter Kylie Manning’s atmospheric drops at the front and back of the stage. Balanchine is represented by one of his most strikingly enigmatic works, Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir, a pas de deux for a woman swathed in a huge, billowing skirt, personifying the “door” of the title, and a man as the “sigh,” illustrating the otherworldly Pierre Henry score.
All Balanchine II
FEB 5, 8 mat, 11, 13, 18
The Company honors the centenary of Maria Tallchief’s birth with three Balanchine works created on the great ballerina. Tallchief danced in the 1952 premiere of Scotch Symphony, a romantic ballet in which Balanchine paid homage to the dramatic landscape and atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands. A pas de deux inspired by the full-length Sylvia returns to the repertory after 30 years, and features intricate classical steps that highlighted her spectacular technique. And Tallchief was also renowned for her performance in the title role of Firebird, an allegorical fantasy set to Stravinsky’s brilliant score.
Innovators & Icons
FEB 6, 7, 8 eve, 9
Jerome Robbins’ intimate knowledge of Chopin’s piano works illuminates the delicate beauty of In the Night, set to the composer’s nocturnes and featuring the romantic interplay among three couples set against a backdrop evoking a starry night sky. Balanchine’s ever-popular leotard ballet Symphony in Three Movements ranks among the most exhilarating dances he created to the music of Stravinsky, with its driving energy matching the fierce pulse of the score. Rounding out the evening is a world premiere from Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky, his eighth dance commissioned by the Company.
Balanchine + Wheeldon
FEB 12, 14, 15 mat & eve, 16
Two plotless Balanchine classics and a narrative ballet from Christopher Wheeldon comprise this program. Divertimento No. 15 is a bravura series of variations marked by complex and captivating classical steps, while the ebullient Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux is a thrilling dance that showcases Balanchine’s ability to evoke a world of romance with just two dancers and less than ten minutes of music. For Carnival of the Animals, Wheeldon, employing a scenario written by the actor John Lithgow, was inspired by New York’s Museum of Natural History to create a delightful fantasy in which a young boy dreams that his family and friends have all been transformed into fauna.
Swan Lake
FEB 19, 20, 21, 22 mat & eve, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, MAR 1 mat & eve, 2
Generally acknowledged as the quintessential classical ballet, and certainly the most popular, Swan Lake never fails to enchant audiences with its mythical tale of a lovelorn prince who falls under the spell of a swan, Odette, a young woman transfigured by the sinister Von Rotbart. The Company’s full-length production, first presented in 1999 and choreographed by longtime Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, draws on the staging by the preeminent classical masters Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. But Martins’ version also highlights the Company’s matchless gift for dancing complex choreography at intoxicatingly brisk tempos.