American Ballet Theatre is starting the New Year with a new leader: Susan Jaffe, who last May was named as the successor to Kevin McKenzie after his 30-year tenure as artistic director. Jaffe isn’t new to ABT—she joined the corps at 18 and was a beloved principal dancer and international star there for 22 years. […]
Kevin McKenzie, American Ballet Theatre’s longtime artistic director, announced yesterday that he will retire at the end of 2022, after three decades at the helm. He will continue to oversee the company’s 2021–22 season while a search for his successor begins this summer. In an interview with The New York Times’ Rosalyn Sulcas, McKenzie noted […]
The year was 2000. Dancers were listening to music on MP3 players on their way to class, Center Stage was gearing up for its cinematic release, and American Ballet Theatre was about to debut a new Swan Lake. What else was going on in the ballet world? As we continue to celebrate Pointe’s 25th anniversary, […]
Last summer, Kirsten Smerud, then 20, had just finished a traineeship at BalletMet and was preparing to join Louisville Ballet’s Studio Company. She wanted to keep up with her training, but she found that she’d aged out of most summer intensives and would be older than the high-school-aged students taking classes at her home studio. […]
Former American Ballet Theatre corps de ballet dancers and married couple Emily Hayes and Jonathan Klein are making a big leap into business. After launching their French-made botanical skin-care company, Murmure, last October, the pair officially resigned from ABT in March to give the new business their full attention. Murmure’s products, which are vegan and cruelty-free, have […]
Globetrotting choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is a peculiarly 21st-century figure. Having served as artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, and then artist in residence first at American Ballet Theatre and now New York City Ballet, he embodies geopolitics in a shrinking and more fractured world. Marina Harss’ terrific biography, The Boy from Kyiv: Alexei Ratmansky’s Life […]
At the forefront of almost every narrative classical ballet, there’s a man and a woman. The ballerina dazzles us with her delicate pointework, while the male ballet dancer, in contrast, astounds us with his agility and strength. They are brought together with a pas de deux, and their trials of love and loss drive the […]
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 […]