New York City Ballet celebrates a major milestone with return to Harris Theater

Even though George Balanchine grew up in Russia and was steeped in that country’s classical ballet tradition, the immigrant choreographer co-founded New York City Ballet and imbued it with a new, streamlined precision that embodied the fast-moving modernity of a rising America.

With 95 dancers and apprentices and an annual budget of $100 million, the company has gone on to become America’s most famous and important such dance organization, and, this season, it is marking its 75th anniversary.

“To last 75 years and to continue growing at the pace that we’re growing is remarkable and something to be very, very proud of and to celebrate,” said Wendy Whelan, a former principal dancer with the company who became its associate artistic director in 2019.

Chicago will join just four other locales, including London, Copenhagen, Washington, D.C., and Saratoga Springs, New York, in celebrating this milestone when the Harris Theater for Music and Dance presents the New York City Ballet in three programs spread across five performances Wednesday to Saturday.

The company’s visit also marks the 20th anniversary of the 1,499-seat theater, which has become an essential downtown Chicago venue, with 30 resident companies and five annual programming series under the moniker of Harris Theater Presents.

© Erin Baiano

Because NYCB became in 2006 the first non-Chicago group the venue presented, Harris officials were eager to bring back the company for this celebratory season. When both parties realized that the theater’s 20th anniversary coincided with the ballet’s 75th, a return seemed all but inevitable. “It was perfectly aligned,” said Lori Dimun, Harris’ president and chief executive officer.

It is hard to overstate the ambitiousness of NYCB’s visit, especially at a time when most major ballet ensembles do little if any touring because of the enormous costs. The company is bringing more than 60 dancers plus its 35-member orchestra with noted music director Andrew Litton. Add in the accompanying production, artistic and administrative staff members, and the tour party will consist of more than 130 people.

Erin Baiano

“It’s massive,” Dimun said. “It’s no small feat even just logistically. They didn’t hold back. [Nearly] the whole company is coming. They said, ‘If you are going to bring us, bring us. We really want to have the full experience.’”

To cover NYCB’s six-figure fee and related expenses, the Harris has had to do special fund-raising, including festivities surrounding the introductory program Wednesday, titled “An Evening with New York City Ballet.”

“We are not calling it a gala,” Dimun said, “but it’s essentially an additional fund-raising event, a big celebration of bringing the company back to Chicago and our 20th.”

Whelan calls NYCB the first such company to be built around an American aesthetic and spirit. She notes that all its members are trained at the aptly named School of American Ballet, which Balanchine co-founded with arts patron Lincoln Kirstein in 1934 to instill the forward-looking qualities the transformative choreographer sought.

Erin Baiano

“The dancers have a very distinct way of moving, and that’s something that has been upheld over the 75 years, and when people come to see the New York City Ballet, the company just looks a little bit different from any other company out there,” said Justin Peck, NYCB’s resident choreographer and artistic adviser.

He pointed to three qualities that defined the Balanchine style and continue to set apart NYCB dancers, ones that he understood “intimately and deeply” as a member of the company in 2007-2019, ultimately achieving the rank of soloist.

They are speed, “almost Olympian” athleticism and musicality. “The dancers are the most musical in the world,” Peck said. “There is a precision to their timing and just an innate kind of way of understanding music through the dancers’ bodies.”

Although Balanchine died in 1983 after serving as artistic director for 35 years, his most celebrated masterworks still remain the bedrock of the company’s repertory, and, indeed, the ensemble began its anniversary celebration in New York with programs devoted wholly to him.

The George Balanchine Trust/Erin Baiano Photo

One of the three programs that NYCB will present in Chicago is “Masters at Work: Balanchine + Robbins,” with two Balanchine classics, “Serenade” (1935) and “The Four Temperaments” (1946). “It’s been in the repertoire for 75 years,” Whelan said of the latter, “and it looks like it could have been made yesterday.” Also featured will be “In the Night” by Jerome Robbins, who joined NYCB as associate artistic director in 1949 and was another key founding father.

While the company takes pains to honor its past, Whelan said, it is in no way stuck there, and that constant renewal follows Balanchine’s wishes. “He always wanted New York City Ballet to stay current and not get stuck in the past, that it was always moving forward and continuing to grow, and I think he would be very pleased,” she said.

The George Balanchine Trust/Erin Baiano Photo

With that in mind, the company will also present a program titled “21^st Century Choreography.” It will feature “Partita,” a 2022 creation by Peck, who called NYCB one of the “great oases of new choreography,” as well as these recent works: Kyle Abraham’s “Love Letter (on shuffle),” Pam Tanowitz’s “Gustave Le Gray No. 1" and Christopher Wheeldon’s “Liturgy.”

“Partita,” is a work for eight dancers set to Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s “Partita for 8 Voices.” It employs a set by artist Eva LeWitt, with hanging circles composed of colorful fabric loops.

“I’m very excited to have these young, innovative artists’ work,” Whelan said. “It’s crackling with today in every way.”

A visit like this upcoming one to Chicago is enormously important to NYCB, Whelan, said, because it helps get company’s artistry out in the world, brings greater awareness and inspires young dancers who might want to join the company.

“I watched New York City Ballet on TV as a kid,” she said, “and there were guest artists from New York Ballet who came to my hometown of Louisville, and from that I fell in love with this very unique kind of dancing, and it made it me want to go to New York.”