These Dancers Went All Out for Halloween, and We Love the Results

October 31, 2017

For dancers, every day is like Halloween. You don’t have to wait until October to try on new personas and elaborate costumes. But that certainly didn’t stop the ballet world from going full out yesterday. We rounded up some of our favorites across Instagram to help draw the *spooky* holiday spirit out for one more day.

Matthew Bourne’s New Adventure’s production of The Red Shoes is nearing its final performances at New York City Center this weekend. American Ballet Theatre’s Marcelo Gomes is guest-starring in the production as Julian Craster, the composer boyfriend to protagonist Victoria Page. But for Halloween, Marcelo donned the infamous red shoes himself to dress as the leading ingenue.

Dance Theater of Harlem’s Ingrid Silva (and Pointe‘s June/July cover star) dressed as a unicorn alongside her dog, Frida Kahlo.

Silva’s not the only one to include her dog in her costume plans. A number of Miami City Ballet dancers brought their furry friends to work dressed in costumes from Balanchine’s Jewels.

But don’t worry. The MCB dancers dressed up too.

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers Elle Macy and Angelica Generosa put their extensive leotard collections to good use as Olympic figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen. Their skating moves are pretty impressive (pointe shoes and all).

Misty Copeland provided costume inspiration for a huge number of aspiring bunheads. We love seeing all of these little Misty look-alikes; check out her Instagram page for even more examples.

Ballet West soloist Allison DeBona put her powers of flight to good use.

Dancers dressing as other dancers is our favorite costume category. Isabella Boylston threw it back to last year’s Halloween when she embodied Sylvie Guillem alongside James Whiteside’s Natalia Makarova.

And Whiteside kept the tradition alive as Anna Pavlova at ABT’s annual Halloween ballet class (this year on the stage of Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater).

New York City Ballet principal Ashley Bouder turned the holiday into a family affair with matching costumes.

And Boston Ballet made this spooky film starring some scary dancer emojis.