These days, Kayla Mak jokes that she’s living like Hannah Montana. “It almost feels like I have two different lives,” she says. A fourth-year at The Juilliard School, Mak joined American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in September 2024. Juilliard’s professional exchange program allows Mak to work with the Studio Company while receiving academic credit towards […]
In 2021, Thomas Forster, principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, came out with his first children’s book, My Daddy Can Fly! At the story’s conclusion, he added acknowledgments to his family, sharing a photo of himself as a boy with his younger sister Louise at the beach. Louise has Down syndrome and is a dancer […]
In May of 2022, American Ballet Theatre director of repertoire Carlos Lopez was preparing Alexei Ratmansky’s Of Love and Rage. On the day Ratmansky joined rehearsal, Lopez was uneasy because he had to put in a new apprentice, Jake Roxander. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, Alexei, we have a lot of people out today,’ ” Lopez recalls. […]
If you follow American Ballet Theatre’s Cameron McCune on social media, you’ve probably noticed that his workout videos are somewhat of a phenomenon. The corps member’s weight-training routine is not only impressive, it’s translated to better physical and mental strength in the studio and onstage. Recently, McCune has taken his passion for exercise to the […]
In the summer of 2018, American Ballet Theatre corps member Jose Sebastian was walking in upper Manhattan with his mother, Pat, after his final performance in the company’s Metropolitan Opera House season. When he found himself reminiscing on summers he spent in the Hamptons as a child, Jose recalls, he suddenly turned to his mother […]
In the summer of 2020, Sarah Lane quietly departed American Ballet Theatre and leapt into the world of freelancing. The move shocked many; during her 18 years at ABT, Lane had acquired a devoted fanbase in New York City and beyond. She managed to stay busy—and even thrive—throughout the remainder of the pandemic as an […]
In a rehearsal studio at American Ballet Theatre not long ago, SunMi Park, a newly minted soloist, and principal dancer Calvin Royal III rehearsed a pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet, Like Water for Chocolate. The passage depicted a tender moment between two people exploring their feelings for each other. As Royal lifted […]
Christopher Wheeldon is no stranger to translating complex and imaginative narratives into full-length ballets, with classics like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. He returns this month to American Ballet Theatre with the U.S. premiere of Like Water for Chocolate, a ballet inspired by the acclaimed novel of the same title by Mexican […]