American Ballet Theatre (ABT)

American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a highly respected national ballet company located in New York City that is dedicated to classical dancing. At its affiliated school, ABT has fostered the careers of many of the world’s greatest dancers. Stars of ABT include Alicia Alonso, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Erik Bruhn, Misty Copeland, Anton Dolin, André Eglevsky, Cynthia Gregory, Rosella Hightower, Nora Kaye, John Kriza, Hugh Laing, Natalia Makarova, Alicia Markova, Ivan Nagy, Janet Reed, Violette Verdy, and Igor Youskevitch. Baryshnikov also served as artistic director during the 1980s and created works for ABT. Other famed choreographers at the theater include Agnes de Mille, Eliot Feld, Michel Fokine, Michael Kidd, Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley, Twyla Tharp, and Antony Tudor. The dance company is known for ballets such as Bluebeard (1941), Russian Soldier (1942), and Themes and Variations.

ABT also became famous for its collaborations with many former Russian stars who defected from the Soviet Union. These included Baryshnikov and Makarova.

Background

American Ballet Theatre (ABT) was founded in 1939 as Ballet Theatre by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, and its first performance took place on January 11, 1940. The company changed its name to American Ballet Theatre in 1957. Chase and Oliver Smith served as directors from 1945 until 1980, and Baryshnikov was artistic director from 1980 to 1989. From 1990 to 1992, Smith and Jane Hermann were directors, followed by Kevin McKenzie from 1992 to 2022, and then Susan Jaffe.

The ballet company dedicated itself to presenting a number of approaches to ballet. It used multiple choreographers and adhered to Russian traditions of ballet but also approached ballet from an American and modern perspective. When dancers of color were virtually unknown in ballet circles, ABT created special units of dancers including Spanish and African American units.

The first season lasted three weeks and included twenty-one ballets—six of these were world premieres, and five were American premieres—as well as restaged classics. The performances were well received, with The New York Times dance critic heaping praise upon Ballet Theatre. The first season also included Chase dancing in Les Sylphides. Bronislava Nijinska, a former dancer and choreographer for the Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev, was one of the most important choreographers of the first season. She choreographed La Fille Mal Gardée and restaged several other works.

The company built upon its success with a second season that featured an American legend. Billy the Kid, which was choreographed in 1938 by Eugene Loring to music by Aaron Copland, was first presented by George Balanchine’s Ballet Caravan. In 1942, Ballet Theatre began touring the United States with performances of Giselle, Swan Lake, and other classics. Under the name American National Ballet Theatre, the company toured internationally during the 1950s.

In 1960, ABT was the first major US dance company to perform in the Soviet Union. Entering the home turf of the nation that dominated ballet for decades was quite an undertaking. Audiences, Russian dancers, and high-ranking government officials all responded well to ABT’s performances. ABT continued to tour internationally and was respected as an artistic ambassador during its visits to the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

Overview

In 1966, ABT was one of the first American organizations to receive a National Endowment for the Arts grant. The US Congress officially recognized it as America’s National Ballet Company in 2006. Such recognition was a tribute to ABT’s success in its mission to preserve classical ballet while pushing forward to bring American ballet innovation to the world.

ABT accomplished its goal by presenting ballets that were accessible to audiences who often viewed ballet as an art form for the wealthy. One of these ballets, Fancy Free, was choreographed by Jerome Robbins in 1944 to music by Leonard Bernstein. The dance follows three US Navy sailors visiting New York City on shore leave. George Balanchine created Theme and Variations in 1947, jettisoning any form of plot and simply showcasing the pairing of Alicia Alonso and Igor Yousevitch performing classical ballet. In 1976, ABT first mounted a full production of Sleeping Beauty, a classic that dates to 1890. ABT reinterpreted the choreography of Marius Petipa again in 2014.

At the same time, ABT embraced the classics. It was the first American ballet company to mount the full version of Swan Lake, a beloved Russian ballet classic that dates to 1895. Other classics in the ABT repertoire include Giselle, ou Les Wilis, and Don Quixote, which date to 1841 and 1869, respectively. Baryshnikov created his own choreography for Don Quixote in 1978, adding a touch of the exotic to the classic. Famed choreographer Antony Tudor staged fourteen works for ABT. The ballet company first produced his Pillar of Fire, a one-act ballet, in 1942.

Pioneering choreographer Agnes de Mille collaborated with composer Aaron Copland and set designer Oliver Smith to bring the ballet Rodeo to the stage in 1950. The work, which dated to 1942, follows a tomboy who is smitten with a cowboy in the West. De Mille also famously brought Lizzie Borden to the ballet stage in 1948 when she choreographed Fall River Legend. Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso danced one of the female lead roles in the tale of the nineteenth-century suspected murderer.

ABT invited modern dance pioneer Twyla Tharp to choreograph Push Comes to Shove in 1976. Tharp meshed ballet, modern dance, and musical theater in the production. ABT went on to stage eighteen world premieres of Tharp ballet, including Rabbit and Rogue in 2008.

ABT’s commitment to diversity is evident in its inclusion of female choreographers. Of the 150 choreographers it had supported as of 2019, 30 percent were women, many from other countries. In 2018, the company announced that it would hire at least three female coreographers each season. The initiative was called the ABT Women's Movement. ABT launched a new program in 2013 to increase racial and ethnic diversity in ballet. Project Plié began seeking promising young dancers, teachers, and others in the art to participate in training programs. Misty Copeland became the first African American ballerina to be a principal dancer with ABT in 2015.

Bibliography

“American Ballet Theatre: Touring the Globe for 75 Years.” Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/exhibits/american-ballet-theatre/1940.html. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

Cooper, Michael. “Misty Copeland Is Promoted to Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theater.” New York Times, 30 June 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/arts/dance/misty-copeland-is-promoted-to-principal-dancer-at-american-ballet-theater.html. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

“Dancer Training.” American Ballet Theatre, 2019, www.abt.org/training/dancer-training/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

Ewing, Alex C. Bravura! Lucia Chase and the American Ballet Theatre. UP of Florida, 2019.

Heimlich, Jennifer. “ABT Is Getting Serious About Female Choreographers.” Dance Magazine, 8 May 2018, www.dancemagazine.com/abt-choreographers/#gsc.tab=0. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

Kaye, Elizabeth. The American Ballet Theatre: A 25-Year Retrospective. Andrews McMeel, 1999.

“Our History.” American Ballet Theatre, 2019, www.abt.org/the-company/about/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

“Project Plié.” American Ballet Theatre, 2019, www.abt.org/community/diversity-inclusion/project-plie/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

“Susan Jaffe Named Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre.” ABT, 9 May 2022, www.abt.org/susan-jaffe-named-artistic-director/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.

Waxman, Olivia B. “‘A Lot Is Still So Much the Same’: Misty Copeland on Decades of Racism and Ballet.” Time, 16 Jan. 2018, time.com/5098808/misty-copeland-raven-wilkinson-book/. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.