New York City Ballet

Over spring break, I had the opportunity to watch New York City Ballet perform an evening of George Balanchine’s work set exclusively to Igor Stravinsky’s music. The program featured four works and lasted about two and a half hours.
New York City Ballet is one of the foremost ballet companies in the world. They’re known for their speed and neoclassical style, and the majority of their company members train at the School of American Ballet before joining the company. Being able to watch them perform was breathtaking. With each step they took, they exuded lightness, brightness, and virtuosity.
So often, concert dance proves to be inaccessible to most mainstream audiences. The dance doesn’t always have a narrative or an easily understood meaning or moral. Often times, there are no words, leaving movements up to the interpretation of each audience member. Coming to terms with this kind of ambiguity and lack of a “right” answer can be difficult for new dance audiences. However, I think that New York City Ballet did a great job of bridging the gap between new and old audiences. Their work was both accessible to a first time viewer (my mom) and complex. Their casts featured well established and prominent ballerinas such as Tiler Peck and Megan Fairchild, as well as several corps de ballet members and soloists.
This concert made a big impact on me because it was so heart warming to be sitting in the audience of a sold out Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. It gave me a feeling that no matter the political environment, the arts were still alive. There are still people willing to do the work as well as people who are invested in supporting the arts. There was still a community of people who believed in the arts, in the hope and joy they provided, and that was the best part of the concert. The dancers transcended the outside world-they gave hope and happiness to the audience.