ROBBINS 100, World Premieres and More on Tap for New York City Ballet's 2017-18 Season

New York City Ballet will open its 2017-18 Season at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, September 19, and will continue with 21 weeks of performances, through Sunday, June 3, featuring 61 ballets by 15 different choreographers.

The season, programmed by NYCB Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, will be highlighted by Robbins 100, a spring season celebration of the centennial of the birth of Jerome Robbins, who was born in New York City on October 11, 1918. In addition to his legendary work on Broadway, where he created such landmark musicals as West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof, Robbins spent much of his creative life at NYCB choreographing more than 50 ballets between 1949 and 1997. Featuring 19 ballets by Robbins, the Robbins 100 celebration will also include a world premiere by NYCB Resident Choreographer Justin Peck inspired by Robbins, and set to a score by Leonard Bernstein, whose centennial will also be celebrated in 2018.

New York City Ballet's 2017-18 season will also feature a second world premiere by Peck during the Fall Season; joined by Fall Season premieres by NYCB dancers Lauren Lovette, who will be making her second work for NYCB, and Troy Schumacher, who will be making his third work for the Company. The fourth Fall Season premiere will be by Gianna Reisen who is currently a student at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of NYCB, who will be making her first-ever work for NYCB. Reisen has previously created choreography for the fall 2016 working session of the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of NYCB, and the 2015 Student Choreography Workshop at SAB. The Winter Season will feature a world premiere by NYCB corps de ballet member and choreographer Peter Walker, who created his first work for NYCB, ten in seven, last year.

The 2017-18 season will open on Tuesday, September 19 with Martins' full-length production of Swan Lake, which will continue for 13 performances through Sunday, October 1. On Thursday, September 28 the Company will present the sixth installment of its annual Fall Fashion Gala, which will feature the premieres by Lovette, Peck, Reisen, and Schumacher, as well as Martins' The Chairman Dances. (The costume designers for the Fall Gala premieres will be announced at a later date.) The Fall Season, which will run for four weeks from September 19 through October 15, will also include highlights from the upcoming 2017 Spring Season Here/Now Festival including ballets from Peck (The Times Are Racing), Alexei Ratmansky (Odessa, his new work for NYCB's 2017 spring season), and Christopher Wheeldon (Liturgy and Polyphonia); an all Balanchine program consisting of Square Dance, La Valse, and Cortège Hongrois; and a 20th Century Violin Concerto program featuring The Red Violin (score by Corigliano, choreography by Martins), In Memory of... (score by Berg, choreography by Robbins), and Stravinsky Violin Concerto (choreography by Balanchine).

The year of performances will continue with the annual holiday season of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, which will take place from Friday, November 24 through Sunday, December 31.

The 2018 Winter Season will take place from Tuesday, January 23 through Sunday, March 4 and will be highlighted by a world premiere ballet by NYCB corps de ballet member Peter Walker. This will be Walker's second work for NYCB, and will premiere on the Company's annual New Combinations Evening on Thursday, February 1. The winter season will also include the return of Martins' full-length production of Romeo + Juliet for 12 performances from Tuesday, February 13 through Friday, February 23. Also included in the 2018 Winter Season are three all Balanchine programs including one devoted to the music of Russian composers featuring Apollo (Stravinsky), Mozartiana (Tschaikovsky), and Cortège Hongrois (Glazounov); one devoted to the music of German composers with Divertimento No. 15 (Mozart), The Four Temperaments (Hindemith), and Chaconne (Gluck); and one devoted to music composed by Igor Stravinsky featuring Divertimento from 'Le Baiser de la Fée,' Agon, Duo Concertant, and Symphony in Three Movements. The winter season will also include additional works by Martins (The Red Violin), as well as Jerome Robbins' The Four Seasons, and works by Mauro Bigonzetti (Oltremare), Nicolas Blanc (Mothership), Benjamin Millepied (Neverwhere), Justin Peck (Year of the Rabbit and the 2017 Spring Season premiere), Angelin Preljocaj (Spectral Evidence), and Alexei Ratmansky (Namouna, A Grand Divertissment and Russian Seasons).

NYCB's 2018 Spring Season will take place from Tuesday, April 24 through Sunday, June 3 and will be highlighted by the Robbins 100 celebration in honor of 100th anniversary of the birth of NYCB Co-Founding Choreographer Jerome Robbins, which will begin with a Spring Gala performance on Thursday, May 3. The spring season will open with two all-Balanchine programs, the first consisting of Concerto Barocco, Agon, and The Four Temperaments, and the second consisting of Apollo, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Symphony in Three Movements. The spring season will also include seven performances of Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova's full-length production of Coppèlia, as well as works by Justin Peck and Alexei Ratmansky.

All performances will take place at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, which is located at West 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue. Subscription tickets for the 2017-18 Season will be available beginning April 17, single tickets for repertory performances will go on sale on August 6 at noon, and single tickets for performances of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker will go on sale in September. Tickets will be available online at nycballet.com, by phone at 212-496-0600, or in person at the David H. Koch Theater Box Office.

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ROBBINS 100
2018 Spring Season Celebration of the Centennial of the Birth of Jerome Robbins, NYCB's Co-Founding Choreographer, Featuring 19 Works by Robbins
and a World Premiere Ballet by Justin Peck
in Tribute to the Centennials of both Robbins and Composer Leonard Bernstein

The centerpiece of NYCB's 2018 Spring Season will be Robbins 100, a celebration of Jerome Robbins, NYCB's co-founding choreographer, whose remarkable contributions to the worlds of ballet and Broadway musical theater have made an indelible impression on both art forms. The three-week celebration will feature 19 works created by Robbins over the course of 40 years.

Robbins 100 will open on Thursday, May 3 with a Spring Gala performance featuring Robbins' Circus Polka (1972) and The Four Seasons (1979), as well as a World Premiere by NYCB Resident Choreographer Justin Peck that will be set to a score by Leonard Bernstein in honor of the centennial of both Robbins and Bernstein, who collaborated on several works for both ballet and Broadway, and were both born in 1918. The spring season will also include a second new work, which will be announced at a later date.

Born on October 11, 1918 in New York City, Jerome Robbins was one of the major forces in 20th century performing arts. He received world renown for his choreography for New York City Ballet, where he spent much of his creative life, as well as for his work with American Ballet Theatre, Ballets: U.S.A., and other dance companies around the world. He received equal acclaim for his work as a director and choreographer of Broadway musicals, plays, movies, and television, winning five Tony Awards and two Academy Awards, as well as numerous other awards and honors including the Handel Medallion of the City of New York (1976), the Kennedy Center Honors (1981), and the National Medal of the Arts (1988).

Robbins began his ballet career with Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre) in 1940, and his first choreographic sensation was Fancy Free, created for Ballet Theatre in 1944 by Robbins and Bernstein, who were both young up-and-comers at the time. In 1945 Robbins and Bernstein teamed up with Betty Comden and Adolph Green to turn Fancy Free into On The Town, Robbins' first Broadway musical. Following the success of On The Town, Robbins went on to create some of Broadway's most legendary shows including Billion Dollar Baby, The Pajama Game, Peter Pan, West Side Story, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, and Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

In 1949, at the invitation of George Balanchine, Robbins joined New York City Ballet as Associate Artistic Director, where he both danced and choreographed. In 1959 Robbins left NYCB to focus on his work for the theater, returning to NYCB in 1969 with his landmark ballet to the piano music of Frédéric Chopin, Dances at a Gathering. Robbins would spend the rest of his life affiliated with NYCB, as both a choreographer and the Company's co-Ballet Master in Chief, a position he shared with Peter Martins from 1983 to 1989. Robbins died in New York City on July 29, 1998.

Following the Spring Gala performance on May 3, the second night of the Robbins 100 celebration will feature three works by Robbins -- Fancy Free, Dybbuk, and West Side Story Suite -- which are set to music by Leonard Bernstein, whose centennial will also be celebrated in 2018. Bernstein, who was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 1918, was a composer, conductor, pianist, author, and lecturer, who led the New York Philharmonic from 1959 to 1969. Bernstein and Robbins collaborated early in both of their careers on the ballets Fancy Free (1944) and Facsimile (1946), for Ballet Theatre, and on the Broadway musical On The Town (1945). In 1957 Robbins and Bernstein collaborated on the landmark Broadway musical West Side Story and in 1974 they created Dybbuk for NYCB.

The Robbins 100 celebration will also include performances of the ballets Interplay (1945), The Cage (1951), Afternoon of a Faun (1953), Fanfare (1953), The Concert (1956), Les Noces (1965), Dances at a Gathering (1969), In the Night (1970), The Goldberg Variations (1971), In G Major (1975), Other Dances (1976), Opus 19/The Dreamer (1979), Glass Pieces (1983), and Antique Epigraphs (1984). See spring season calendar for a complete schedule of Robbins 100 programs.

2017-18 SEASON WORLD PREMIERE BALLETS:

Lauren Lovette World Premiere - September 28, 2017 (Fall Gala)

NYCB Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette will choreograph her second work for NYCB with a Fall Gala World Premiere on Thursday, September 28. A Principal Dancer with NYCB since 2015, Lovette was born in California, and began studying ballet at the age of 11 at the Cary Ballet Conservatory in Cary, North Carolina. She attended summer courses at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the summers of 2004 and 2005, enrolled at SAB as a full-time student in 2006, and has been a member of the Company since 2010. In addition to her work as a dancer, Lovette began choreographing while a student at SAB where she participated in the School's Choreography Workshops in 2008 and 2009. In the summer of 2010, Lovette also participated in a working session of the New York Choreographic Institute, and her first work for NYCB, For Clara, was created for the 2016 Fall Gala.

Justin Peck World Premieres - September 28, 2017 (Fall Gala) and May 3, 2018 (Spring Gala)

NYCB Soloist and Resident Choreographer Justin Peck will create two World Premiere ballets for NYCB during the 2017-18 Season. The first will premiere at the 2017 Fall Gala on Thursday, September 28; and the second will premiere at the 2018 Spring Gala on Thursday, May 3, as part of the opening night of the Robbins 100 celebration. Peck's spring season premiere will be set to a score by Leonard Bernstein, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of both Robbins and Bernstein.

As a choreographer Peck has worked with a range of artistic collaborators including composers Dan Deacon, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Sufjan Stevens; visual artists Jules de Balincourt, Marcel Dzama, Shepard Fairey, Karl Jensen, and Sterling Ruby; and fashion designers Prabal Gurung, Mary Katrantzou, Humberto Leon, and Dries Van Noten. He has created more than 30 works for a range of institutions including New York City Ballet, the Paris Opéra Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, the School of American Ballet, the Nantucket Atheneum Dance Festival, and New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival. A native of San Diego, California and a dancer with New York City Ballet since 2007, Peck participated in the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of NYCB, in 2009, and in 2011 NYCB Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins designatEd Peck to receive NYCI's first year-long choreographic residency. Peck was named NYCB's Resident Choreographer, the second in the Company's history, in July 2014.

Gianna Reisen World Premiere - September 28, 2017 (Fall Gala)

A student at the School of American Ballet, the official school of NYCB, Gianna 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 and danced in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker for two years while in the School's children's division, and has also performed in five of the School's annual June workshop performances. 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. Her Fall Gala World Premiere will be Reisen's first-ever work for NYCB.

Troy Schumacher World Premiere - September 28, 2017 (Fall Gala)

Choreographer and NYCB Soloist Troy Schumacher will make his third work for NYCB with a Fall Gala World Premiere on Thursday, September 28, 2017. His first piece for NYCB, Clearing Dawn, was created for the 2014 Fall Gala, and his second, Common Ground, was created for the 2015 Fall Gala.

In 2010, Schumacher founded BalletCollective, and as the company's director and resident choreographer, he collaborates closely with composers, artists, designers, and other artists on original works. In 2012, he was chosen to participate in the Fall Session at the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of NYCB. He has also received choreographic commissions from the 92nd Street Y Fridays at Noon series, the School of American Ballet, Salon/Sanctuary with Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Atlanta Ballet. Schumacher, born in Atlanta, Georgia, began his ballet training with Atlanta Ballet and the Chautauqua School of Dance before entering the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in 2002. In January 2005 he became an apprentice with NYCB and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet the following December, and was promoted to Soloist in February 2017.

Peter Walker World Premiere - February 1, 2018 (New Combinations Evening)

NYCB Corps de Ballet Member Peter Walker will make his second work for NYCB with a Winter Season World Premiere on Thursday, February 1 as part of the Company's annual New Combinations Evening. Walker made his first work for NYCB, ten in seven, for the 2016 Fall Gala. Born in Fort Myers, Florida, Walker started his ballet training with former NYCB Principal Dancer Melinda Roy at the Gulfshore Ballet. Walker began his studies at the School of American Ballet during the 2006 summer course, enrolled as a full-time student in the winter of 2007, and joined the NYCB corps de ballet in 2012. Walker has also participated in working sessions at the New York Choreographic Institute in 2011 and 2012, and has created works for students at the School of American Ballet for the School's 2015 and 2016 Winter Balls.

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 athletic, contemporary style, and a repertory of original ballets that has forever changed the face of classical dance. Now under the direction of Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins and Executive Director Katherine Brown, NYCB is committed to promoting creative excellence and nurturing a new generation of dancers and choreographers.