New York City Ballet to Present 2024 Art Series Featuring David Michalek

New York City Ballet will present the eleventh installment of its acclaimed Art Series initiative during the Company’s 2024 Winter Season. As part of the Company’s ongoing 75th anniversary celebration, New York- based artist David Michalek will re-envision his large-scale video installation SlowDancing/NYCB for the interior of the David H. Koch Theater.

Co-directed by Wendy Whelan, NYCB’s Associate Artistic Director, the installation will feature more than 50 hyper slow-moving images of 20 of NYCB’s current dancers performing iconic moments from the Company’s unparalleled repertory. More than 30 ballets will be included, from George Balanchine’s Apollo and Prodigal Son, created in 1928 and 1929 respectively, to one of the Company’s most recent creations, Justin Peck’s Copland Dance Episodes, which premiered in January 2023. The exhibition was conceived by Michalek and Whelan to commemorate NYCB’s 75th Anniversary Season, and was previously shown outdoors for just two weeks during the Company’s 2023 Fall Season.
“I am thrilled that SlowDancing/NYCB will return in a new iteration, for audiences to experience inside the theater and up close,” said Michalek. Each film from SlowDancing/NYCB, which captures a movement sequence of approximately five seconds in length recorded at 1000 high-definition frames per second, is played back over a span of 10 minutes in length.

The 50-plus films that comprise SlowDancing/NYCB will be displayed in a continuous loop on a triptych of screens, each measuring 26.5’’ high and 20’’ wide, and mounted on the rings of the Promenade.

The 2024 Art Series installation will be on display from Tuesday, January 23 through Sunday, March 3 during all of NYCB’s 2024 Winter Season performances. NYCB will also host free, open hours for the general public from Saturday, February 17 to Sunday, February 25 (Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.; Monday-Friday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.)
In addition, NYCB will hold three special Art Series performances, which will take place on Saturday, February 3 at 8 p.m.; Thursday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m.; and Friday, February 23 at 8 p.m. All single tickets for these three Art Series performances are priced at just $40 and will go on sale at noon on Friday, January 5 at nycballet.com, or by calling 212-496-0600. Each Art Series performance will be followed by a post-performance party on the theater’s Promenade open to all audience members.

To learn more about New York City Ballet, or to purchase tickets for any performance, visit nycballet.com, or call 212-496-0600. The David H. Koch Theater is located at Lincoln Center, Columbus Avenue and West 63rd Street.

ABOUT NYCB ART SERIES

Launched in 2013, NYCB Art Series was designed to produce annual collaborations between contemporary visual artists and New York City Ballet in an effort to showcase and celebrate the visual arts during NYCB performances at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. The first nine installments of Art Series have featured acclaimed installations by FAILE (2013), JR (2014), Dustin Yellin (2015), Marcel Dzama (2016), Santtu Mustonen (2017), Jihan Zencirli (aka Geronimo) (2018), Shantell Martin (2019), Lauren Redniss (2020), Eva LeWitt (2022), and DRIFT (2023).

Through the use of non-traditional marketing, social media engagement, and specially priced tickets, the NYCB Art Series was also conceived to engage audiences new to NYCB, as well as to cross pollinate NYCB’s existing fans with those of the commissioned artists. Art Series has introduced tens of thousands of new patrons to New York City Ballet, helping to change the Company’s demographic make-up.

In addition to NYCB’s unparalleled history of commissioning new work from numerous composers and choreographers, the Company also has a long tradition of working with visual artists such as Isamu Noguchi, Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Santiago Calatrava, Per Kirkeby, and others, all of whom have created artworks and other visual elements for NYCB performances. The lobby of the David H. Koch Theater, which was built for NYCB and opened at Lincoln Center in 1964, also features a permanent collection that includes several landmark works of art, including Jasper Johns’ Numbers, Lee Bontecou’s Untitled Relief, and Elie Nadelman’s Two Female Nudes and Two Circus Women.
 

ABOUT David Michalek

David Michalek is an artist who has been closely tied to an interest in the contemporary person, which he explores through the use of photography, drawing, video/sound installations, relational aesthetics, performance techniques, public works, storytelling, movement, and gesture.

Michalek’s work in video has been focused on capturing carefully staged marginal moments that develop density with minimal action through interplays of image, sound, and – most especially – decelerated time. His recent work considers the potentiality of various forms of slowness alongside an examination of contemporary modes of public attention. He is drawn in particular to projects that bring together artists and ideas into effective pairings and in settings ranging from museums, galleries, theaters and public spaces, to houses of worship, community organizations, and centers of learning.

Michalek’s first iteration of SlowDancing was presented at Lincoln Center in July 2007 by the Lincoln Center Festival, and featured moving images of more than 40 acclaimed artists from around the world performing a broad range of dance styles. The New York Times called it “an unforgettable dance meets- technology evening...a revelation of energy, phrasing, stillness and style.” In 2008 David Michalek and his studio won a Bessie Installation/New Media Award for the SlowDancing installation, which later traveled to museums, galleries, and public spaces in more than 40 international locations, including Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard University); Los Angeles, California (Los Angeles Music Center); London, England (Trafalgar Square); Venice, Italy (Venice Biennale); and Berlin, Germany (Gendarmenmarkt). Since its premiere in 2007, Michalek has expanded SlowDancing to include a variety of iterations, each with a different focus.

Michalek’s solo and collaborative work has been shown nationally and internationally. He has been on the visiting faculty of the Yale Divinity School, where he lectured on Religion and Arts, and Harvard University’s Theater, Dance, and Media Program, where he’s lectured on the intersection of Art and Social Action.
Michalek resides in New York City and is married to acclaimed dancer and New York City Ballet Associate Artistic Director Wendy Whelan.

NEW YORK CITY BALLET is one of the foremost dance companies in the world, with a roster of more than 90 dancers and an unparalleled repertory of modern masterpieces. The Company was founded in 1948 by the legendary choreographer George Balanchine and arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, and quickly became world-renowned for its contemporary style and a repertory of original ballets that has forever changed the face of classical dance. For more information visit nycballet.com.