ABT & City Center

American Ballet Theatre’s relationship with New York City Center began in 1947, headlined by the World Premiere of George Balanchine’s masterpiece Theme and Variations, created for Ballet Theatre luminaries Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch. Over its 81-year history, ABT’s performances at City Center have featured more than 30 World Premieres, 30 Company Premieres, and seven major revivals created by leading choreographers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Agnes de Mille, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Lar Lubovitch, Kenneth MacMillan, Alexei Ratmansky, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Antony Tudor, and Christopher Wheeldon.

In 1997, after an absence of more than two decades, ABT returned to City Center for regular fall seasons through 2012. ABT’s City Center engagements came to be known as a place to see new choreography and established repertoire in an intimate setting. The Company participated in City Center’s first Fall for Dance Festival in 2004 and has been a proud participant throughout the festival’s celebrated history. Most recently, ABT performed Symphonie Concertante in Balanchine: The City Center Years as part of City Center’s 75th Anniversary Season 2018-2019.

Alexei Ratmansky

Artist in Residence

Alexei Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg and trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow.  His performing career included positions as principal dancer with Ukrainian National Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet.  He has choreographed ballets for the Mariinsky Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Kiev Ballet and the State Ballet of Georgia. He became Artist in Residence with American Ballet Theatre in 2009.

Ratmansky was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for 2013.  In 2020, he received a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Classical Choreography for his work with San Francisco Ballet on Shostakovich Trilogy, a co-commission with American Ballet Theatre. Bernstein in a Bubble is Ratmansky’s 18th work for ABT.