You'll Never Guess Who is Making a New Rite of Spring for ABT's Spring Season

October 25, 2017

According to
The New York Times
, American Ballet Theatre has a big surprise up its sleeve for its 2018 spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Wayne McGregor will be making his choreographic debut for ABT during the May 21 spring gala. And the ballet he’s making will be a new staging of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.


Wayne McGregor. Photo by Johan Persson, Courtesy Royal Opera House

McGregor’s version is titled Afterite, and frankly we can’t wait to see what happens when the iconic, notoriously difficult score collides with McGregor’s hyper-physical approach to ballet technique. Despite being one of the most in-demand ballet choreographers in the world since he first worked with The Royal Ballet over a decade ago, the London-based choreographer doesn’t get his work seen much in New York City. New York City Ballet has only one McGregor in its repertory, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater acquired his contemporary classic Chroma in 2013.

The other premiere slated for ABT’s spring season is the previously announced new production of Harlequinade spearheaded by Alexei Ratmansky, who is continuing his quest to revive and reinvent ballets based on the notation of their original productions. Also on the menu are ABT full-length mainstays including La Bayadère, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Ratmansky’s Whipped Cream, which premiered earlier this year.