Hosted by ballet historian Elizabeth Kaye, ABT’s Behind the Ballet pre-recorded lectures provide a look into each of the 2023 Summer season productions, drawing you into each ballet with musical and historical insight, clear synopses, and alluring anecdotes of rival ballerinas, style trends, and Tchaikovsky’s woes. Kaye’s unmistakable love of dance and its evolution is ever-present through each lecture, from the classics of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet to Christopher Wheeldon’s new work, Like Water for Chocolate.

Romeo and Juliet

Hosted by ballet historian Elizabeth Kaye, ABT’s Behind the Ballet pre-recorded lectures provide a look into each of the 2023 Summer season productions, drawing you into each ballet with musical and historical insight, clear synopses, and alluring anecdotes of rival ballerinas, style trends, and Tchaikovsky’s woes. Kaye’s unmistakable love of dance and its evolution is ever-present through each lecture, from the classics of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet to Christopher Wheeldon’s new work, Like Water for Chocolate.

Swan Lake

Hosted by ballet historian Elizabeth Kaye, ABT’s Behind the Ballet pre-recorded lectures provide a look into each of the 2023 Summer season productions, drawing you into each ballet with musical and historical insight, clear synopses, and alluring anecdotes of rival ballerinas, style trends, and Tchaikovsky’s woes. Kaye’s unmistakable love of dance and its evolution is ever-present through each lecture, from the classics of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet to Christopher Wheeldon’s new work, Like Water for Chocolate.

Giselle

Hosted by ballet historian Elizabeth Kaye, ABT’s Behind the Ballet pre-recorded lectures provide a look into each of the 2023 Summer season productions, drawing you into each ballet with musical and historical insight, clear synopses, and alluring anecdotes of rival ballerinas, style trends, and Tchaikovsky’s woes. Kaye’s unmistakable love of dance and its evolution is ever-present through each lecture, from the classics of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet to Christopher Wheeldon’s new work, Like Water for Chocolate.

Like Water for Chocolate

Hosted by ballet historian Elizabeth Kaye, ABT’s Behind the Ballet pre-recorded lectures provide a look into each of the 2023 Summer season productions, drawing you into each ballet with musical and historical insight, clear synopses, and alluring anecdotes of rival ballerinas, style trends, and Tchaikovsky’s woes. Kaye’s unmistakable love of dance and its evolution is ever-present through each lecture, from the classics of Giselle, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet to Christopher Wheeldon’s new work, Like Water for Chocolate.

Artistic Director Susan Jaffe, the architect behind the video series, acknowledged, “One of the biggest hurdles, I think to bringing in anybody new to ballet is that people, when they first come and sit in front of a ballet, they’re very intimidated. They think they’re supposed to know what’s going on.”

Recognizing the vocabulary of storytelling through movement can sometimes feel inaccessible, ABT hopes these videos can provide the tools and knowledge for theater goers and those who are looking to dive deeper to feel that much more excited and self-assured when attending or discussing these rich full-length productions.

While Behind the Ballet may be new to ABT, Elizabeth Kaye certainly is not. Kaye has been dedicated to ABT’s mission of sharing classical ballet to the widest possible audience, from her book American Ballet Theatre: A 25 Year Retrospective (1999) to her past and present pre-performance talks at the Met Opera House and Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Kaye has a longstanding history with the Company and is excited to welcome a whole new generation of balletomanes through this new series.

So, before you come to the Met and see one of ABT’s full-length productions between June 22 and July 22, be sure to check out Behind the Ballet with Elizabeth Kaye, so you can follow the emotion, beauty, and intricacies of each story with confidence.

2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Prix de Lausanne. An international ballet competition for young dancers, the Prix de Lausanne provides participants the opportunity to develop their skills and showcase their potential to leading ballet companies around the world.

Dancers perform and compete in front of the Prix de Lausanne Jury of renown dance personalities for scholarship opportunities, apprenticeships, medals, and cash prizes.

American Ballet Theatre has been a close partner of the Prix de Lausanne, sending a number of dancers, faculty, and staff to the competition over the years. The ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School is a Partner School of the Prix de Lausanne, while ABT Studio Company is a Partner Company.

2023 Competition 

ABT sent three members of the ABT family to Lausanne this year: Aleisha Walker, Madison Brown, and Lilia Greyeyes.

As friends, colleagues, and a stellar choreographic-dancer duo, ABT apprentice Aleisha Walker and ABT Studio Company member Madison Brown competed in the Young Creation Award competition for which Aleisha’s Do You Care? was one of five worldwide finalists out of over 80 entrants. Madison performed Aleisha’s solo in front of the Prix de Lausanne Jury and a live-streamed audience on Wednesday, February 1. Later that evening, Aleisha was honored with one of two coveted Young Creation Awards.

Aleisha’s solo Do You Care? set to “Nocturnal Waltz” by Johannes Bornlöf will now become part of the competition’s contemporary repertoire.

Representing the ABT JKO School in the Partner School Choreographic Project at the 2023 Prix de Lausanne, Lilia Greyeyes was part of a new work by Goyo Montero and performed with other representative students from Prix de Lausanne Partner Schools around the world. Lilia was recently promoted from the ABT JKO School to ABT Studio Company – congratulations!

ABT presents a post-performance panel on the World Premiere work Lifted on Saturday, October 29, 2022 

Join us for a post-performance panel discussion on Christopher Rudd’s World Premiere work Lifted, created with an all-Black cast and creative team. Free for all audience members, the discussion will follow ABT’s 2:00pm matinee performance of Lifted, Jessica Lang’s Children’s Songs Dance, and Jiří Kylián’s Sinfonietta on Saturday, October 29.

Moderated by author and professor Aimee Meredith Cox, the discussion will feature Lifted creators as panelists: Choreographer Christopher Rudd, ABT Dancers Calvin Royal III and Courtney Lavine, Fashion Designer Carly Cushnie, Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon, and Conductor Roderick Cox.

Lifted aims to highlight, amplify, and celebrate Black creative voices. ABT’s panel will create a forum to bring attention to the landmark nature of Rudd’s ballet and what it means for younger generations of dancers of color to see themselves represented on stage in this monumental way.

For many productions, there is such limited time for stage rehearsals that we have to split the rehearsal up amongst several casts to give enough time to those debuting in a role. In an ideal situation, every artist would have a chance to feel what it will be like to get out onstage in a role, regardless of how many times they have performed it. At ABT, however, we cannot always make that happen.

Due to this lack of time, the Directors of Repertoire and dancers try to get in as much rehearsal time in the studio as possible. This way, the ballet is so ingrained in the dancers’ bodies and minds that when the lights, stage, and live audience hit, they are not completely disoriented or thrown off.

Most of the time, in a dress rehearsal, the audience is witnessing that exact moment of the unknown for the artist, as well as the adjustments that need to be made to dance in a new space. Very often, the dress rehearsal is the first time the dancers hear the music with live orchestra, and that changes things too. Needing a moment to get used to the stage is often why dancers make mistakes, fall off technical details, or are not absolutely in sync during the stage rehearsal.

The good news is that since the dancers know ahead of time that things will be hectic, they come to the dress rehearsal psychologically prepared for imperfections, and they know that it’s a moment for them to acclimate and make adjustments. The Artistic Director, choreographers, and Directors of Repertoire also need to discern what is being revealed and give feedback accordingly. Skill and experience are needed from both dancers and staff.

Sometimes in a dress rehearsal, the production crew is testing lights or fine-tuning set changes, adding more variables for the dancers to take into account as they acclimate to the stage. Again, the physical preparation in the studio is vital, and the psychological preparation can make all the difference.

When the actual performance happens, the dancers are revved up with their adrenaline flowing and their desire to dance their best. This excitement, along with their talent, cooperation, and support of one another, is what makes the ABT miracle happen, despite the obstacles experienced prior to showtime.

Many a time over my almost 18 years as Director of Repertoire with ABT, I have witnessed an imperfect dress rehearsal in the afternoon and an absolutely brilliant performance danced that evening. It is continuously rewarding and a fascinating process to witness.

During American Ballet Theatre’s 2021 Fall season, two special Pride Nights will be held on Wednesday, October 27 at 7:30pm and on Saturday, October 30 at 8:00pm in honor of Christopher Rudd’s Touché, a male pas de deux included in ABT’s “Rhythm and Rapture” program.

During American Ballet Theatre’s 2021 Fall season, two special Pride Nights will be held on Wednesday, October 27 at 7:30pm and on Saturday, October 30 at 8:00pm in honor of Christopher Rudd’s Touché, a male pas de deux included in ABT’s “Rhythm and Rapture” program.

ABT's LGBTQIA+ Legacy

by Joseph Carman

A notable 1947 photo by bisexual photographer Cecil Beaton captures American Ballet Theatre’s nascent period, documenting five members of the Artistic Committee of Ballet Theatre gathering to inspect future plans for the Company. They include choreographer Agnes de Mille and Ballet Theatre co-director Lucia Chase. The other three are scenic designer and co-director Oliver Smith, choreographer Jerome Robbins, and composer Aaron Copland—all gay men.

From the beginning, ABT’s bloodline has flowed with the artistic enrichment of members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

As has been documented, queer artists throughout history have formidably shaped creativity in all art forms: music, the visual arts, costume and set design, theater, literature, film, television, and dance. What ABT’s LGBTQIA+ artists have bestowed on the troupe is estimable. In 1944, Robbins and the bisexual composer Leonard Bernstein collaborated on the seminal ballet Fancy Free, about randy sailors on shore leave, loosely based on the painting The Fleet’s In! by gay artist Paul Cadmus, with iconic sets designed by Oliver Smith. Their ingenious minds helped to accentuate the “theater” in Ballet Theatre, as it was known then. Adding to a legacy of dramatic ballets, Antony Tudor, whose life partner was ABT dancer Hugh Laing, choreographed ballets, such as Jardin aux Lilas and Dark Elegies, that formed a backbone of complex 20th century works in the repertoire. 

Even recently, the early 20th century ballets by bisexual dancer/choreographers Leonide Massine (Gaîté Parisienne) and Vaslav Nijinsky (Afternoon of a Faun) have graced ABT’s repertoire. The homosexual impresario Serge Diaghilev curated a host of ballets for his Ballets Russes that have ennobled ABT’s programs, including Michel Fokine’s Les Sylphides, a signature work for ABT that appeared on the Company’s first program in 1940; and George Balanchine’s meatiest ballets for men, Apollo and Prodigal Son.

The beloved Frederick Ashton’s works have arrived more recently at ABT, including The Dream, Cinderella, and La Fille mal gardée. The latter two works by the late gay choreographer feature juicy drag roles with their respective sassy stepsisters and the clog-stomping Widow Simone. Contrast these to those often en travesti bitter bitches—the wicked fairy Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty and Madge, the evil witch in La Sylphide.

Over the years, ABT hired LGBTQIA+ choreographers to create or restage ballets for the Company.

Among those were Alvin Ailey, John Neumeier, Peter Anastos, Glen Tetley (whose life partner was ABT dancer/ballet master Scott Douglas), Lar Lubovitch, Hans van Manen, and ABT dancer/choreographers Dennis Nahat, Kirk Peterson, John Meehan, and Clark Tippet. In addition to dancing with the Company, pansexual superstar Rudolph Nureyev restaged Paquita and Raymonda for ABT, and the late Frederic Franklin staged historic ballets for ABT over a period of time. During Mikhail Baryshnikov’s directorship, aided by his colorful assistant Charles France, he added quite a roster of formidable queer choreographers: Choo San Goh, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and Mark Morris. Later came Robert Hill, Ulysses Dove, John Cranko, Nacho Duato, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Ballet wouldn’t exist without inspiring musical scores, and Tchaikovsky’s brilliantly sensitive imagination brought us Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Theme and Variations, and The Nutcracker. Other LGBTQIA+ composers whose stirring scores have uplifted the Company’s ballets are Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Camille Saint-Saëns, John Corigliano, Francis Poulenc, Samuel Barber, Cole Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Virgil Thompson, and Nico Muhly. John Lanchbery orchestrated much of ABT’s classical repertoire and conducted the orchestra.

While Christopher Rudd’s Touché is groundbreaking at ABT for its rapturous, gay eroticism, gay-themed ballets have periodically appeared on ABT’s stages.

In the 1950s, director Herbert Ross choreographed The Maids, a ballet based on gay French author Jean Genet’s play, that featured two men as the murderous sisters. In 1973 the Company presented gay choreographer Rudi van Danzig’s Monument for a Dead Boy, which documents the torturous life of a young gay man. In 1982, ABT premiered Kenneth MacMillan’s The Wild Boy with its infamous homoerotic kiss. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, Lar Lubovitch set his duet from Concerto Six Twenty-Two on the Company, a male pas de deux that emphasized the intimate companionship of two men.

ABT suffered unspeakable losses throughout the AIDS crisis. So many dancers were taken by the disease: Peter Fonseca, David Cuevas, Clark Tippet, Charles Ward, Ian Horvath, Gary Cordial, William Carter, Gregory Osborne, Carld Jonassaint, Richard Cragun, and Rudolph Nureyev. The choreographers included Ulysses Dove, Alvin Ailey, and Choo San Goh. In the ABT family, we also lost Company pianist Lynn Stanford, organist Boyd Staplin, teachers and director of repertoire Woytek Lowski, makeup artist Leopold Allen, dresser Larry Ray, stage manager Jerry Rice, and Emile Ardolino, who directed ABT’s Live from Lincoln Center and Dance in America specials on PBS.

It must also be acknowledged that ABT lost an entire audience of fervent LGBTQIA+ fans during the AIDS plague. Replacing the collective wisdom and artistry of those taken by the disease is insurmountable.

In response to Russia’s so-called “gay  propaganda” law, signed by Vladimir Putin in 2013, Mikhail Baryshnikov issued a statement published by the No More Fear Foundation, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) for the protection of LGBT rights. “My life has been immensely enriched by gay mentors, colleagues and friends, and any discrimination and persecution of gay people is unacceptable,” he said. “Equal treatment of people is a basic right and it is sad that we still have to even speak about this in the 21st century.”