Choreographers Reshaping Ballet
The artists behind contemporary ballet's biggest shifts - from deconstructing classical technique to building dance theatre out of personal trauma. Each profile traces a choreographer's training, signature works, and lasting influence.
Contemporary ballet has no single founder and no single school. The choreographers below arrive at it from very different directions - some from inside the classical tradition, some from theatre, some from movement forms that have nothing to do with ballet at all - and knowing which direction an artist comes from is the quickest way to make sense of their work. The four routes below the list are one way to find your bearings.
✦ Four Routes Through the Choreographers ✦
Taking Ballet Apart From Inside
Choreographers who kept classical technique but changed what it could do. William Forsythe pushed its geometry off-center at Ballett Frankfurt; Jiří Kylián built a third way between ballet and modern dance at NDT; Wayne McGregor stretched it to extremes of speed and extension. Mats Ek did the same to the classics' stories, rebuilding Giselle and Swan Lake as psychological drama.
Dance as Theatre
Artists for whom movement is one theatrical tool among several. Pina Bausch's Tanztheater is the root; Crystal Pite brings text and large ensembles to it, Akram Khan brings kathak's storytelling, Hofesh Shechter brings his own pounding scores, and Alexander Ekman brings spectacle and a sense of humor about the whole enterprise.
New Movement Languages
Choreographers who built a vocabulary from sources outside the ballet studio. Ohad Naharin developed Gaga from sensation rather than steps; Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui works across cultures and forms; Kyle Abraham draws on house and hip-hop; Aszure Barton builds earthy, gestural work in long collaboration with her dancers; and Twyla Tharp folded social dance into classical technique decades before it was common.
New Stories for Ballet Companies
Choreographers making new narrative and neoclassical work for the big classical houses. Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky have revived the full-length story ballet; Cathy Marston adapts novels and lives with psychological depth; and Justin Peck brings restless, sneaker-clad energy to a neoclassical frame.