Emily Kikta

Photo: Erin Baiano.

Emily Kikta is a soloist dancer with New York City Ballet, where she has been a member since 2010. She is a 2019 Virginia B. Toulmin Fellow for women leaders in dance at NYU.

In 2019, she co-founded her own dance video production company with Peter Walker, KW Creative, where she serves as a producer, director, choreographer, editor, and performer. Working on both sides of the camera, KW Creative has made films for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Sotheby’s International, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Janie Taylor for Los Angeles Dance Project, New York Choreographic Institute, New Chamber Ballet, and Ballet Collective. KW Creative was a recipient of a 2020 residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.

Kikta has choreographed for American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, the School of American Ballet, Columbia University, and Jacob Jonas the Company.

As a dancer with New York City Ballet, she has performed featured roles in ballets including George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rubies, Episodes, Raymonda Variations, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Who Cares?, Coppélia (War), Chaconne, The Nutcracker (Dewdrop, Coffee), and The Four Temperaments; Jerome Robbins’ The Cage; Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go; and Peter Martins’ The Sleeping Beauty (Diamond). She has originated a featured role in Peter Martins’ Ocean’s Kingdom with music composed by Paul McCartney, Jamar Roberts’ Emanon, Pam Tanowitz’s Bartok Ballet, Sidra Bell’s Suspended Animation, and Peter Walker’s ten in seven.

Kikta graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University in 2017 and is receiving her master’s degree in Business Administration at Pace University in New York.