The most interesting dancers are the ones who aren’t quite knowable. Watch New York City Ballet corps member Alston Macgill in Peter Martins’ blazing Fearful Symmetries, and you might peg her as the kind of speed-demon powerhouse who’s most lethal in contemporary works. Watch her as the high-flying third-movement soloist in Balanchine’s Symphony in C, […]

At 30, he’s too young to be having a midlife crisis. But between June and October, former New York City Ballet principal Robert Fairchild bid farewell to the home he’d made with Tiler Peck since their 2014 marriage and to their joint artistic home as well, embarking on his next chapter as a solo act. […]

On Saturday, New York City Ballet announced who will be leading the company while ballet master in chief Peter Martins is on a self-requested leave of absence amidst an ongoing investigation into sexual harassment allegations. The decision, made by NYCB’s board, was somewhat surprising. Instead of choosing one interim director, they appointed a team of […]

While it’s appalling that any male leader would use his power to humiliate women, the accusations against Peter Martins opens up a wonderful, rosy possibility. In an email conversation about Martins stepping down temporarily, a friend of mine wrote, “They won’t hire a man in this climate.” I suddenly found myself getting giddy with the […]

Nutcracker season starts today at many ballet companies, including New York City Ballet. For corps members like Claire Kretzschmar, that means an always demanding schedule reaches a whole new level of busy. Here’s how she keeps herself going. Kretzschmar in the Coffee variation. Photo by Paul Kolnik, courtesy NYCB. • At night: A hearty meal, […]

As dancers, we often talk about perfect feet, perfect turnout and the perfect execution of steps. We spend our days in diligent pursuit of the total mastery of our bodies. We seek to fully conquer space and time. We want our dance to be perfect, which is a powerful incarnation of our deeper human longing […]

There’s something special about seeing New York City Ballet dance at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Maybe it’s the history: George Balanchine helped design the theater, and NYCB has called SPAC, which opened in 1966, its summer home for over 50 years. But over the weekend, SPAC announced that NYCB’s 2018 residence will be shortened, according […]

Last week we wrote about how choreographer Alexei Ratmansky set off a Facebook firestorm with a post proclaiming that “there is no such thing as equality in ballet” when it comes to gender roles. Coming from one of today’s foremost choreographers in ballet, his words unsurprisingly drew hundreds of heated reactions. And maybe that was […]