NYCBallet Announces 2018 Fall Fashion Gala

On September 27, New York City Ballet will present the seventh installment of its annual Fall Fashion Gala, celebrating choreography and costume design with an evening of world premiere ballets and creative collaborations between some of today's most exciting artists from the worlds of dance and design.

This year's edition will include premieres by choreographer Kyle Abraham in his first-ever work for a ballet company, featuring costumes designed by British fashion designer Giles Deacon; choreographer Matthew Neenan in his first work for NYCB, featuring costumes designed by British designer Gareth Pugh; and choreographer Gianna Reisen, who will make her second work for the Company, featuring costumes designed by Italian designer Alberta Ferretti. The gala evening will feature music by composers John Adams (for the new Reisen ballet) and Antonín Dvo?ák (for the new Neenan ballet), and lighting by NYCB's Resident Lighting Designer Mark Stanley for both the Reisen and Neenan premieres. The music and lighting design for the new Abraham work will be announced at a later date.

Conceived by NYCB Board Vice Chair Sarah Jessica Parker, and launched in 2012 with a gala celebration of the legendary designer Valentino, NYCB's Fall Fashion Gala has since featured costumes designed by Virgil Abloh of Off-White, Rosie Assoulin, Thom Browne, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Tsumori Chisato, Peter Copping for Oscar de la Renta, Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim of MONSE and Oscar de la Renta, Prabal Gurung, Carolina Herrera, Mary Katrantzou, Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony and Kenzo, Hanako Maeda of ADEAM, Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques'Almeida, Zuhair Murad, Narciso Rodriguez, Jonathan Saunders, Olivier Theyskens, Valentino, Iris van Herpen, Dries Van Noten, and Jason Wu, who have designed costumes for works by choreographers Robert Binet, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Lauren Lovette, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Justin Peck, Angelin Preljocaj, Gianna Reisen, Liam Scarlett, Troy Schumacher, Myles Thatcher, Peter Walker, and Christopher Wheeldon. All of the designs have been created in house at the New York City Ballet Costume Shop in collaboration with the designers and NYCB's Director of Costumes Marc Happel.

Since the inception of the first Fall Fashion Gala in 2012, the annual event has raised more than $15 million for New York City Ballet. The Chairmen for the seventh edition of the event will include Parker and co-chairs Mazdack Rassi, Zanna Roberts Rassi, and Lizzie Tisch.

World Premiere by Kyle Abraham

Costumes Designed by Giles Deacon

Kyle Abraham, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, will choreograph his first-ever work for a ballet company with his world premiere at the 2018 Fall Gala. The score for the ballet will be announced at a later date. Born in Pittsburgh where he began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School, Abraham went on to study dance at SUNY Purchase and received an MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Abraham founded his acclaimed modern dance company Abraham.In.Motion (now called A.I.M.) in 2005. In addition to the MacArthur Fellowship, Abraham is a 2016 Doris Duke Award recipient and a 2012 USA Ford Fellow, and has also received such awards as the Jacob's Pillow Dance Award in 2012, and both the Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. Abraham was the resident artist at New York Live Arts from 2012 to 2014, has created pieces for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and was one of four choreographers who collaborated with former NYCB Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan on Restless Creature in 2013. Abraham is also a recipient of a 2017-18 Creative Residency at The Joyce Theater, where his company A.I.M. performed a one-week engagement in May 2018.

The costumes for Abraham's 2018 fall gala premiere will be created by British couturier and illustrator Giles Deacon. After graduating from London's Central Saint Martins in 1992, Deacon worked with Tom Ford at Gucci and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac in Paris. From 1998 until 2002 he designed at Bottega Veneta and the Gucci group. Launching his eponymous label in 2004, Deacon went on to win "Best New Designer" at the British Fashion Awards before receiving "The British Designer of the Year" title two years later. In 2009 Deacon was awarded the prestigious ANDAM award in Paris. In 2016 Deacon launched his inaugural couture collection in Paris. The Giles Deacon couture and Giles Deacon Bridal couture collections are made to order privately in conjunction with prestigious stores such as Matches Fashion, Moda Operandi, Harrods, Net-a-Porter, ON Motcomb, and Hudson's Bay, as well as by loyal clientele worldwide. Deacon continues to have a strong celebrity following and regularly dresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Cate Blanchett, Gwendoline Christie, Kerry Washington, Thandie Newton, Kate Moss, Drew Barrymore, Kate Hudson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Adwoa Aboah, and Rihanna. Deacon recently published the book GilesSølveKatie, published by Laurence King, documenting the relationship between Emmy Award-winning photographer Sølve Sundsbø and Katie Grand, stylist and Editor in Chief of Love Magazine.

World Premiere by Matthew Neenan

Costumes Designed by Gareth Pugh

Matthew Neenan, the Choreographer in Residence of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Co-Founder of Philadelphia's BalletX, will create his first work for NYCB with a World Premiere at the 2018 Fall Gala. The score for Neenan's new work will be comprised of music for string quartet by composer Antonín Dvo?ák (Waltzes, Op. 54, B105, No. 1 and No. 4; and String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 2). Neenan began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School and later attended New York's LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet (the official school of NYCB). From 1994 to 2007 Neenan danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet where he performed numerous principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, Paul Taylor, Jorma Elo, Jessica Lang, and Christopher Wheeldon. In 2005, Neenan co-founded Philadelphia's BalletX with fellow dancer Christine Cox, which has toured extensively featuring Neenan's work. His choreography has also been performed by numerous companies including The Washington Ballet, Ballet West, and The Juilliard School, among many others.

Future commissions for 2018-19 include Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California. In 2003 Neenan participated in a

working session of the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of New York City Ballet, and received the NYCI's Fellowship Initiative Award in 2006 to support the development of new work at the Pennsylvania Ballet.

The costumes for Neenan's Fall Gala premiere will be designed by British fashion designer Gareth Pugh. Educated at London's Central Saint Martins, Pugh's clothes have been described as wearable sculptures - experimental forms, volumes, and fabrics are all signature to his aesthetic. Pugh made his London Fashion Week debut in 2005. He later won the ANDAM Fashion Award, presenting his first show in Paris in September 2008. He went on to present his first menswear collection in January 2009 and would remain on the Paris schedule for a further six years. In 2015, the designer celebrated the 10th anniversary of his label with a return to London Fashion Week. It proved a triumphant homecoming, with Vogue Runway describing his Spring/Summer 2016 show as "perhaps his best collection ever." Widely considered a leading proponent of fashion film and new technology, Pugh is known for a highly transgressive approach. Over the past decade he has worked with some of the most popular artists of our time - including Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna - and with some of the world's most important cultural institutions, including the Opéra Garnier in Paris and The Royal Opera House in London.

Most recently the designer presented work as part of The Costume Institute's 2018 summer exhibition 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination' at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gareth Pugh is represented internationally by Starworks Group and CXA New York.

World Premiere by Gianna Reisen

Costumes Designed by Alberta Ferretti

Gianna Reisen, choreographer and company member with L.A. Dance Project, will choreograph her second ballet for NYCB at the 2018 Fall Gala. The score for the ballet will be comprised of excerpts from John Adams' 1994 composition John's Book of Alleged Dances. Reisen was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey, and trained at In the Spotlight Dance Studio for four years. In 2010, she began studying at the School of American Ballet, the official school of NYCB, and danced in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker for two years while in the School's children's division, and also performed in five of the School's annual June workshop performances.

A graduate of the School of American Ballet, and former Ballet Semperoper Dresden apprentice, Reisen is currently a company member with L.A. Dance Project. Reisen participated in SAB's Student Choreography Workshop as a dancer in 2014 and as both a dancer and choreographer in 2015. She has also participated in the New York Choreographic Institute's spring 2015 and spring 2016 working sessions as a dancer, and made her first piece of choreography for the Institute during the fall 2016 working session. She became the youngest choreographer in history to make a work for NYCB with her first work for the Company, Composer's Holiday, which premiered at the 2017 Fall Fashion Gala.

The costumes for Reisen's ballet will be designed by Italian fashion designer Alberta Ferretti. Ferretti embodies femininity, elegance, sensuality and glamour. Her affinity for fashion began when she was very young, inaugurating a career full of personal achievements in style and business. In 1980, Ferretti and her brother, Massimo Ferretti, created Aeffe SpA. A year later, she debuted as the Creative Director of her own brand during Milan Fashion Week. The rapid global expansion coordinated by the four showrooms in Milan, Paris, London and New York led to the opening of numerous boutiques in the most important fashion and luxury capitals of the world. These successes have garnered Ferretti awards such as the Cavaliere del Lavoro by the President of the Italian Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro in 1998, the honorary degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage for the recovery of the medieval village of Montegridolfo in 2000, the Lifetime Achievement award in Rome for her professional commitment and for her work in promoting Italian culture in the world in 2005, as well as recognition from the International Fashion Group when Anna Wintour awarded her the Star Award during the annual Night of Stars in New York in 2005. As an interpreter of beauty, charm, and personality, the most influential celebrities and international socialites wear her creations on the most photographed red carpets all over the world.

Fall Gala Tickets

Benefit-priced tickets for the gala evening, which include the 7 p.m. performance, a pre-performance reception, and black-tie supper ball following the performance, are available through the NYCB Special Events Office at 212-870-5585 and at nycballet.com/fallgala. Tickets for the performance only start at $35 and will be available starting on August 5, 2018 at nycballet.com, by calling 212-496-0600, or at the David H. Koch Theater box office, located at West 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue.

Major funding for New York City Ballet programming is provided by the Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation/Miss Gillian Attfield, Zoë Baird and Bill Budinger, Emily and Len Blavatnik, Stuart H. Coleman and Meryl Rosofsky, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Hearst Foundations, Holland and Knight LLP, Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lincoln Center Corporate Fund, Martha and Bob Lipp, Mastercard, Karen and Tommy Murphy, The New York Community Trust - Mary P. Oenslager Foundation Fund, The Paiko Foundation, PUMA, The Shubert Foundation, Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation, Denise R. Sobel, Michael and Sue Steinberg, The Travelers Companies, Inc., and John L. and Barbara Vogelstein.

Major support for new work is provided by members of the New Combinations Fund.

Programming is made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Travelers Companies, Inc. is the Global Sponsor of New York City Ballet.