NYCB’s Fall Season Brings World Premieres, an Unusual Balanchine Revival, and a Farewell

New York City Ballet’s fall season, which began on September 22, kicked off with audience favorite Jewels, by company co-founder George Balanchine, before launching into four weeks of wide-ranging works.

“I always really try to touch on the spectrum of our repertory,” associate artistic director Wendy Whelan tells Pointe of her approach to programming. “I have to really touch base with our legacy works, and then focus [on] the future, and then get some of the middle meat that we haven’t seen in a while.”

In the mix this fall are a few standout moments, including several world premieres; the welcoming back of an unusual and seldom-seen Balanchine ballet; and a farewell to a longtime principal dancer.  

3 New Works at the Fall Fashion Gala

NYCB’s annual Fall Fashion Gala, which pairs fashion designers with choreographers, tends to showcase new dance creations in eye-popping costumes. And this year’s iteration on October 1 will feature not one but three world premieres, including the company’s first-ever collaboration with Jennifer Archibald, founder and artistic director of the Arch Dance Company. Archibald will make her NYCB debut with a new work for eight dancers in costumes designed by Robert Wun. 

“She’s been so prolific, and I really started hearing from other directors about how great she was for their companies to work with,” Whelan says of Archibald. “There’s a good handful of dancers that we’re going to see really new things out of, which will be fun.”

The evening also presents a new pas de deux by resident choreographer Justin Peck, starring principal dancers (and real-life couple) Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia in designs by Simone Rocha.  

“It’s a very special, intimate duet that’s being designed specifically for these two dancers,” Justin says of the new piece. “I think it’s a way to really speak to where they both are at this point in their lives and in their careers. It feels like a real capsule of this moment.”

And choreographer Alysa Pires—who crafts “wonderfully constructed pieces” with carpenter-like precision, Whelan says—returns for her second NYCB commission in collaboration with designer Viktor&Rolf. Her first work for the company, Standard Deviation, premiered in 2023.

George Balanchine’s Pithoprakta

Balanchine’s Pithoprakta may not be a new ballet, but it will likely feel like one—not only because it’s so different from most Balanchine ballets, but also because NYCB hasn’t performed it since 1969.  

Pithoprakta (meaning “action by probabilities”) was first brought to NYCB’s attention about a year ago by Balanchine muse Suzanne Farrell, who originated the female lead in 1968 and mounted a rare revival of the ballet nearly two decades ago with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center and New York City Center.

“She sent me the video, and I was smitten,” Whelan says. “I was like, ‘This is Balanchine like I’ve never seen Balanchine before.’ ”

For the dancers, navigating composer Iannis Xenakis’ unusual, anxiety-inducing score of a similar name is a challenge in and of itself. Farrell, who returned to NYCB to stage the ballet, asked that the conductor be there as much as possible as the dancers worked their way through the music’s tricky sound cues and counts. Meanwhile, the choreography—innovative, wild, and from an experimental time for Balanchine in the late ’60s—involves a swirling energy where the two lead dancers feed off of each other yet barely touch during the approximately 12-minute piece.

Dancers Mira Nadon and Davide Riccardo, as well as Unity Phelan and David Gabriel, have been tasked with untangling that central pas de deux, with Dominika Afanasenkov and Andres Zuniga also rehearsing the same roles.

“They’re all really interesting,” Whelan says of each dancer’s approach to the role. “[Pithoprakta] brings new things out of people, because it’s so unexpected that the dancers tackle the different qualities in their own way. It’s like each dancer is given this puzzle. How are you going to present this puzzle physically and musically?”

Adrian Danchig-Waring’s Farewell Performance

The fall season wraps up on October 18 with a one-time-only program celebrating principal dancer Adrian Danchig-Waring as he concludes his 24-year dance career with the company. The California native joined NYCB as an apprentice in 2002, rising through the ranks to principal in 2013. Whelan says he dances with a clarity and intelligence that he’s brought to works such as Balanchine’s black-and-white ballets—two of which he has chosen to finish with. “I think those are his deep loves,” she says. 

For his final performance, Danchig-Waring will dance in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments and Agon, as well as Lar Lubovitch’s Each In Their Own Time—a role that Danchig-Waring originated at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival in 2021. Choreographer Pam Tanowitz is also creating a new “pièce d’occasion,” to be danced by Danchig-Waring along with three principal ballerinas near and dear to his career.

But while he’s saying goodbye to the NYCB stage, he isn’t bidding farewell to the company entirely. After taking his final bow, Danchig-Waring will continue to serve as artistic director of the NYCB-affiliated New York Choreographic Institute.