New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a leading dance company in the United States. It is based at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City . The company was co-founded in 1948 by Lincoln Kirstein and the Russian-born choreographer (dance creator) George Balanchine . Kirstein was an American ballet enthusiast, art critic, and polymath (person of wide or varied learning). Since its founding, the NYCB has become known for its athletic, technically demanding, and contemporary style.
The New York City Ballet is one of the largest dance companies in the United States. With few exceptions, all of its dancers come from the School of American Ballet, the company’s official academy. The school shares artistic leadership with the company, and its faculty consists chiefly of current and former company members. The NYCB has its own dedicated orchestra and costume shop. It also is affiliated with the New York Choreographic Institute, which promotes the development of choreographers and dancers.
The New York City Ballet has a repertory (collection of works) of more than 400 ballets. Many of these works were created by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins , and Peter Martins . The American Robbins and Danish-born Martins succeeded Balanchine as ballet masters in chief. The company usually performs at the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater) at Lincoln Center. Its summer home is the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York. The company also tours in the United States and internationally.
The origins of the New York City Ballet can be traced to 1933. That year, Kirstein invited Balanchine to come to the United States and help him pioneer a modern American ballet school and company. In 1934, the two men opened the School of American Ballet in New York City to train future company dancers. In 1935, they established the American Ballet, which served as the resident ballet company of the Metropolitan Opera for three years.
Over the next decade, faced with various difficulties, Balanchine and Kirstein formed and dissolved a number of other ballet companies. In 1946, they formed Ballet Society. The company’s performance of Balanchine’s work Orpheus (1948) impressed Morton Baum, a co-founder of New York’s City Center of Music and Drama. Baum invited Balanchine and Kirstein to establish a resident company at City Center, and the New York City Ballet was born. The company moved to the New York State Theater, a purpose-built theater at Lincoln Center, in 1964.
