Lincoln Center, located on 66th Street and Broadway and just off the 1 train, is one of the most famous performing arts centers in the world, and the New York City Ballet is its crown jewel.
With the spring season starting on April 28th, the full-length classics Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and Coppelia are returning to the stage, as well as 40 other works and two world premieres.
The first premiere will be choreographed by Jiri Bubenicek, a participant of the New York Choreographic Institute making his NYCB debut this spring. The second premier will be choreographed by NYCB’s own principal dancer, Benjamin Millepied. This piece will be Millipied’s first choreographic commission for NYCB.
Featured choreographers will include many household names, including George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, and Christopher Wheeldon. But the season will also highlight Douglas Lee, a two-time contributor to the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, with a ballet called Lifecasting.
The opening performance on April 28 at 8 p.m. will include Balanchine’s classics Concerto Barocco, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, La Valse, and Symphony in Three Movements. Concerto Barocco is set to music by J.S. Bach and in the piece the dancers attempt to personify the violins, which have a prominent place in the score.
Balanchine said of the work, “If the dance designer sees in the development of classical dancing a counterpart in the development of music and has studied them both, he will derive continual inspiration from great scores.”
Symphony in Three Movements, another Balanchine staple, is set to jazzy music by Igor Stravinsky, which the choreography responds to by emphasizing jazzy dance techniques such as turned in feet. Balanchine has said of the show, “They [the dancers] try to catch the music and do not, I hope, lean on it, using it instead for support and time frame.”
Alongside the exciting new season, NYCB will release a book titled The Dancer’s Way, a health guide directed towards dancers written by former dancer and clinical psychologist Linda Hamilton.
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