Lighting Designer

This season, Giant Steps presents two of George Balanchine’s most famous works, Apollo and The Four Temperaments. And then Christopher Wheeldon takes up the baton with the ballet Corybantic Games.

Giant Steps

Royal Danish Opera

A Tribute to Balanchine and Wheeldon with Pure and Powerful Dance.

This season, Giant Steps presents two of George Balanchine’s most iconic masterpieces—Apollo and Symphony in C—alongside Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games, which carries the torch forward into the 21st century.

Firebird is back after a 20-year hiatus! Ming Cho Lee’s breathtaking sets, the epic Stravinsky score, and choreography from PNB Founding Artistic Director Kent Stowell work in harmony in this theatrical one-act ballet. Balanced perfectly by Alejandro Cerrudo’s most playful work, Little mortal jump, and the rock ‘n roll drama of Ulysses Dove’s Red Angels, this fiery production will keep you on your toes from start to finish.

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Firebird

Seattle Center

George Balanchine’s Jewels is considered to be the first full-length ballet without a plot. Inspired by a visit to the Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery store in New York, the choreographer decided to create a work based on the properties of various precious stones for his New York City Ballet in 1967.

Jewels

Vienna State Opera

Balanchine’s affection for Shakespeare’s scintillating comedy dated to his childhood, when he appeared as an elf in a St. Petersburg production. His abiding love of the play culminated in this 1962 ballet—the first original full-length work he created for the Company—which displayed his often-unheralded gift for characterization.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Lincoln Center

Concluding a 25-year career with NYCB, Andrew Veyette, a principal dancer long-recognized for his dynamic artistry and charisma, takes his final bow at this special matinee performance. The one-time-only program will include the Third Movement from Glass Pieces along with Chiaroscuro and Stars and Stripes.

Andrew Veyette Farewell

This specially curated performance is designed to provide a relaxed, inclusive environment where individuals with sensory processing challenges, including autism, can experience New York City Ballet. Slight modifications will include a relaxed entry/exit policy, adjustments to lighting and sound levels, designated break areas throughout the Theater, additional event staffing to assist with audience needs, and pre-visit resources, including a visual schedule. This one-time-only performance features three ballets by NYCB’s Founder George Balanchine.

Sensory-Friendly Performance

A program distinguished by its variety opens with Balanchine’s Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fée,’ choreographed to a Stravinsky symphonic suite. Kyle Abraham’s When We Fell was originally filmed and streamed during the pandemic, and here makes its live debut. Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Chiaroscuro, a ballet for six dancers from 1994, evokes the artistic term of its title through the interaction of light and shadow as well as diverging tempos, while Alexei Ratmansky’s Odesa features three couples, their interplay infused with hints of drama, and a corps de ballet, and is set to incidental music from the Russian film Sketches to Sunset that alternates between the ruminative and the rambunctious.

Eclectic NYCB

In 1975 the Company presented a festival dedicated to the music of the French composer Maurice Ravel. To honor the 50th anniversary of the event, the Company offers this program featuring four works that had their premieres during the festival: Jerome Robbins’ playful In G Major, with sets and costumes by the Art Deco master Erté; Pavane, a solo work from Balanchine for a female dancer; Errante, returning from its lauded Spring 2024 revival; and Sonatine, a pas de deux marked by a lighthearted spirit of dancers at play. 

All Ravel

The ever-growing breadth of the repertory is illustrated in this program highlighting the work of three current dancemakers. Alexei Ratmansky’s Solitude debuted in the winter of 2024 to broad acclaim. Somber in its beauty, this elegiac ensemble work, with a moving lead role depicting a grieving father, is a rare dance set to the music of Gustav Mahler. Ratmansky, Russian-born but raised in Kyiv, dedicated this singular ballet “to the children of Ukraine, victims of the war.” The program also includes ballets from Caili Quan and Justin Peck, which debuted in the fall and winter, respectively.

Contemporary Choreography

A supremely well-crafted ballet performed in tutus and set to the sparkling music of Mozart, Divertimento No. 15 illustrates Balanchine’s unsurpassed gift for exploring the variety and richness of classical choreography. Vienna Waltzes, a ballet in five parts set to music from Johann Strauss II, Franz Léhar, and Richard Strauss, is Balanchine’s variously hued tribute to the Austrian capital at its cultural apex in the 19th Century.

All Balanchine II

A pair of Jerome Robbins ballets set to the music of Bach are featured alongside works by Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon. Robbins’ A Suite of Dances features a single male dancer—Mikhail Baryshnikov originated the role—interacting with the onstage cellist, creating a mood of friendly companionship. Brandenburg, Robbins’ final ballet, danced to four of the famed concertos of the title, is a series of pas de deux that evoke strikingly contrasting moods. Wheeldon’s After the Rain Pas de Deux has become one of his signature works, a transfixing dance that contains hints of spirituality and transcendence despite its seeming simplicity.

Innovators & Icons II

Inspired by a Company engagement at the Edinburgh Festival and set to an evocative Mendelssohn score, Balanchine’s Scotch Symphony, for a lead couple and a corps de ballet, is a nod to the romantic tradition of ballet. Jerome Robbins’ enthralling Glass Pieces, a perennial favorite in the repertory, moves through moods to rise to a galvanizingly energetic finale. And while Justin Peck is celebrated for his high-energy ensemble works, Belles-Lettres reveals another aspect of his voice, with its series of gently lyrical pas de deux and solos steeped in an air of reflective romanticism.

Innovators & Icons I

A feast for Balanchine devotees. The oldest Balanchine ballet in the repertory, the neoclassical masterwork Apollo, first staged in 1928, leads a bill that traces the choreographer’s work across an astonishing half-century. Also on the program is the exhilarating Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, a supremely stylish dance created to music originally written for Swan Lake.

All Balanchine I

Generally acknowledged as the quintessential classical ballet, and certainly the most popular, Swan Lake never fails to enchant audiences with its mythical tale of a lovelorn prince who falls under the spell of a swan, Odette, a young woman transfigured by the sinister Von Rotbart. The Company’s full-length production, first presented in 1999 and choreographed by longtime Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, draws on the staging by the preeminent classical masters Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. But Martins’ version also highlights the Company’s matchless gift for dancing complex choreography at intoxicatingly brisk tempos.

Swan Lake

Two plotless Balanchine classics and a narrative ballet from Christopher Wheeldon comprise this program. Divertimento No. 15 is a bravura series of variations marked by complex and captivating classical steps, while the ebullient Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux is a thrilling dance that showcases Balanchine’s ability to evoke a world of romance with just two dancers and less than ten minutes of music. For Carnival of the Animals, Wheeldon, employing a scenario written by the actor John Lithgow, was inspired by New York’s Museum of Natural History to create a delightful fantasy in which a young boy dreams that his family and friends have all been transformed into fauna.

Balanchine + Wheeldon

Jerome Robbins’ intimate knowledge of Chopin’s piano works illuminates the delicate beauty of In the Night, set to the composer’s nocturnes and featuring the romantic interplay among three couples set against a backdrop evoking a starry night sky. Balanchine’s ever-popular leotard ballet Symphony in Three Movements ranks among the most exhilarating dances he created to the music of Stravinsky, with its driving energy matching the fierce pulse of the score. Rounding out the evening is a world premiere from Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky, his eighth dance commissioned by the Company.

Innovators & Icons

The Company honors the centenary of Maria Tallchief’s birth with three Balanchine works created on the great ballerina. Tallchief danced in the 1952 premiere of Scotch Symphony, a romantic ballet in which Balanchine paid homage to the dramatic landscape and atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands. A pas de deux inspired by the full-length Sylvia returns to the repertory after 30 years, and features intricate classical steps that highlighted her spectacular technique. And Tallchief was also renowned for her performance in the title role of Firebird, an allegorical fantasy set to Stravinsky’s brilliant score.

A program devoted to works set to music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky is highlighted by two unique Jerome Robbins gems: The Cage, which depicts a swarm of insect-like female creatures descending upon their unwitting male prey, and Concertino, a trio that was originally performed as the third section of Robbins’ Four Chamber Works. Balanchine’s Danses Concertantes, a spirited ballet with richly detailed costumes and hints of commedia dell’arte-inspired humor, opens the program, and his classic leotard ballet Stravinsky Violin Concerto, one of Balanchine’s greatest achievements, brings the affair to a rousing finish.

All Stravinsky

Balanchine’s multifaceted talent is showcased in a program uniting three classic works. Concerto Barocco, from 1941, is set to Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, and features crystalline choreography for the two lead ballerinas, each representing the voice of one violin, as well as a male dancer and a small corps de ballet. For Allegro Brillante Balanchine returned to a favorite composer, Tschaikovsky, to create a scintillating dance that combines lyricism and buoyancy.

George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, like his Theme and Variations, evokes the era of Russia’s Imperial Ballet with its grandeur and elegance.

Ballet Imperial

The rare full-length ballet highlighted by generous doses of comedy, Coppélia returns to the repertory to mark the 50th anniversary of Balanchine’s 1974 staging. Drawing on the Petipa production, Balanchine collaborated with the great Russian dancer Alexandra Danilova, renowned for her performance in the central role of Swanilda, to bring this 19th-century staple to renewed life.

Coppélia

A trio of classic dances by Balanchine joins a favorite from Alexei Ratmansky. Mozartiana, one of Balanchine’s late works, weaves an elegiac spell with its austerely beautiful black costuming and pellucid classical choreography. Two dances set to Stravinsky, the elegant, neoclassical Monumentum pro Gesualdo and the spiky, arrestingly unique Movements for Piano and Orchestra, always make for a stimulating pairing. 

Balanchine + Ratmansky

NYCB marks Justin Peck’s tenth year as resident choreographer with this selection of some of his finest works, displaying both his versatility and his musicality. The program includes his first dance for the Company, In Creases, from 2012, an ensemble piece set to music by Philip Glass. As its title indicates, Solo was choreographed for a single dancer, and made its debut as a short film directed by Sofia Coppola during the pandemic.

All Peck

George Balanchine is one of the greatest and most innovative choreographers ever to have lived. The trio of ballets featured in the performance "Giant Steps" demonstrates precisely why this is the case.

The Royal Playhouse and The Old Stage

Passion, love, and death! From the moody love songs of singer/songwriter James Blake, to the sizzling strains of the electric violin, to one of the most profound pieces of dancer theater ever created, these dances will take you on an unforgettable journey through love and war.

Love and War

Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre

A program exclusively of firsts. Geoffrey Gonzalez premieres his new ballet, An American in Paris. Elizabeth Wistrich premieres her new ballet, Boléro – The Awakening. And City Ballet adds their first Christopher Wheeldon ballet to their repertoire, Morphoses.

An American In Paris

California Center for the Arts

Balboa Theatre

A plotless divertissement, the ballet features archetypal characters such as Snow, Frost, the Faun and the Rose. Alexander Glazunov composed the music for The Seasons for Marius Petipa to use in his original 1900 ballet—one of the last productions Petipa choreographed prior to his retirement. This new version features original choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, who has chosen to retain almost all of the original character names, though the monikers are designed to serve more as abstract ideas than literal representations.

The Seasons

Experience the unmatched energy of this PNB fan-favorite extravaganza, complimented by the joyous, pure dance spectacle of George Balanchine's Allegro Brillante, an early PNB Balanchine acquisition, and a world premiere by Alexei Ratmansky (Don Quixote, Pictures at an Exhibition).

Carmina Burana

This season's Giant Steps consists of three works that span a wide range. Together, the three choreographers explore all corners of the emotional register — from unbridled gaiety to the deepest seriousness.

The Royal Danish Theatre

Famous orchestral scores by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Benjamin Britten, and Bohuslav Martinů form the musical heart of this three-part ballet evening. "See the music, hear the dance"—this was the motto of George Balanchine, the founder of the New York City Ballet and a grand master of neoclassical dance. For him, dance was visual music and should lead the audience to hear it in a new and different way. With pure beauty and perfectly choreographed formations of dancers, Balanchine's legendary piece "Serenade" is breathtaking. Cathy Marston's choreography "Against the Tide" was created for London's Royal Ballet. For this piece, she explored Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto and the background of its creation in 2025. Ballet Zurich will perform a piece by Justin Peck for the first time. In his "Paz de la Jolla," developed entirely in the spirit of Balanchine and set to music by Bohuslav Martinů, the resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet celebrates a Californian beach atmosphere.

Lighting Designer

Mark Stanley

Events

Upcoming events

May 22 - Jun 5, 2027

Giant Steps · Det Kongelige Teater

May 22 - Jun 27, 2027

See the music, hear the dance · Opernhaus Zürich

Past events

May 29 - Jun 5, 2026

Giant Steps · Det Kongelige Teater

21 - 26 May, 2026

Giant Steps · Det Kongelige Teater

About

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