Peek Backstage During Roberto Bolle's Final Bow with ABT

Roberto Bolle’s rise in ballet reads like a fairy tale—one in which he’s the prince. At 15, he was hand-picked by Rudolf Nureyev to perform with La Scala Ballet, and by 19 he was hired into the company. Two years later, he rose to the rank of principal, and in 2009, he joined American Ballet […]

Love It or Hate It, Our Editors Discuss All Things Jane Eyre

Story ballets that debut during American Ballet Theatre’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House are always the subject of much curiosity—and, sometimes, much debate. Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre was no different. The ballet follows the eponymous heroine of Charlotte Brönte’s novel as she grows from a willful orphan to a self-possessed governess, charting her […]

June's Best Performance Bets, Chosen by DM Writers and Editors

This month’s picks include premieres, Little Princes and a principal dancer’s farewell that’s sure to leave you sobbing. Here are the shows our writers and editors around the country are most excited to catch. Pearls in PA STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos Kitoko Chargois, Courtesy PearlArts Studios PITTSBURGH Choreographer Staycee Pearl is on […]

9 of Our Favorite Valentine's Day Dancer Posts

No matter how much anti–Valentine’s Day sentiment I’m feeling in a given year, there’s something about dancer couples that still makes me swoon. Here’s a collection of wonderful posts from this year, but be warned: Continued scrolling is likely to give you a severe case of the warm fuzzies. Herman Cornejo got engaged! Herman Cornejo […]

How We Choose Our "25 to Watch"

When I tell people that I’m an editor at Dance Magazine, one of the first questions I am asked is usually something along the lines of, “So, how does ’25 to Watch’ work?” ABT’s Sterling Baca and Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Nayara Lopes on the January 2016 cover. Photo by Nathan Sayers. It starts with […]

Scarlett Fever

Liam Scarlett defies all the clichés about “genius at work” and “artistic temperament.” Constructing an intimate pas de deux for American Ballet Theatre’s Hee Seo and Marcelo Gomes last fall, he conceived quietly attentive lifts and intricate steps with the cool deliberation of a mason laying bricks. The dancers, joined by the second cast’s Isabella […]

The Sublime Hee Seo

Seo as Tatiana in Cranko’s  Onegin at ABT. Photo by Nathan Sayers.     At the American Ballet Theatre studios in downtown Manhattan, Hee Seo explodes through the air in a jeté, eyes flashing, energy shooting through her luxuriously arched feet. Rippling her arms from her lithe back, her Odile gleefully seduces soloist Alexandre Hammoudi’s Prince Siegfried, […]

Curtain Up

It’s become famously difficult for a female soloist at American Ballet Theatre to rise to principal. Some of the best dancers in New York are at the soloist level. But ABT imports spectacular guest artists from abroad (which is great for box office and buzz) with such regularity that it creates a ceiling beyond which […]