From the NYCI: Spring 2025

“In general, my work investigates the intersection between postmodern dance and ballet, particularly influenced over the past few years by the choreographic work and history of New York City Ballet. The NYCI offered me the opportunity to experiment with how the casual aesthetic that defines my work manifests in ballet dancers trained in Balanchine’s technique," writes New York-based choreographer Julia Antinozzi. "With Duet for Six, I wanted to use these dancers' training but challenge their facility and the idea of what ballet can be. Attempting to recontextualize the allure and form of Balanchine’s technique, I invited the dancers to shift the way they embody form and effort, and release standards of perfection. The work is full of references to NYCB’s history, repertory, and style. For example, I built a phrase using images of George Balanchine in rehearsal that I gathered from the NYPL’s Performing Arts Library. This process recycled stills of Balanchine’s body in 1965 through mine in 2025, and then to students who currently train in his technique, generations after the school’s inception. I love the way this abstraction adds secret references, giving the work a significant essence while allowing it to exist as a new circumstance.

"I consider my choreography to be the way in which movements are arranged in relationship to each other while in conversation with sound, time, and space," she continues. "The relationship between movement and sound, in particular, is critical! It was exciting to work with Jacob for this project, and after receiving the score, I looked for ways to both enhance his music while maintaining the tone of my work. It provided a really clear structure, which allowed me to 'see the dance' and track the potential for the work to transform over time. Hoping to break some compositional expectations with this project, I experimented with contrasting melody with stillness and silence with activity. I also chose to bookend the six-minute acoustic score with a brown noise drone, which provided time to introduce the dancers and their relationships, untethered to a predetermined musicality. The drone existed throughout the entire piece and supplied an underlying tension, mostly imperceptible but always present. When Jacob’s score concludes with an energetic crescendo, the dancers continue moving in the persistent drone, suggesting the perpetuity of this world."

"This opportunity was a monumental experience for me! I had a great time and feel inspired to continue challenging expectations of the ballet form,” Antinozzi concludes. Composer Jacob Beranek echoes these sentiments, writing, "This opportunity was an honor and a thrilling experience for me."

As with Antinozzi's choreography, history enters into a fruitful conversation with the contemporary in Beranek's composition. "My piece, Ecce!, seeks to blend the ancient and the modern—encapsulated in feelings of ecstatic joy, longing, trial, and triumph—into one tight, energetic package," he writes. "The title, Latin for 'behold' or 'hark,' was inspired by a verse from the Song of Songs: 'The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills' (2:8), or, as the second sentence reads in Latin: 'Ecce iste venit, saliens in montibus, transiliens colles....' The image of a lover springing with eagerness through the mountains immediately appealed to me, as I began composing the piece a few weeks before my own wedding! The majority of my work on this composition also happened to occur during Advent and Christmastime. I found myself preparing for the Nativity by praying a set of ancient meditations called the 'O Antiphons' (seven prayers, all beginning with 'O,' which count down from the 17th to 24th of December). I had heard of these prayers once before, but I had not given them much thought since then. Nevertheless, this time, they captivated my imagination so strongly while working on this piece that I chose to pepper the 'O Antiphon' prayers throughout the score as an extra layer of meaning—small spiritual guideposts which evoke the expression of a given section." 

Regarding his session with the Institute, choreographer Fran Díaz writes: 

“It seems to me that one of the essential elements in tenderness is that it is a free act, a gratuitous act. It has an enormous amount to do with liberty, with freedom, because one chooses to be tender. And in a certain sense, in the face of so often what is surrounding us, it is an almost defiant act of freedom.”—John Berger

Tenderness, as John Berger suggests, is a free act—an offering without demand. In a world structured around outcomes, efficiency, and performance, to choose tenderness is to reclaim one's agency in a system that rarely rewards vulnerability or care.

The research session shifted from producing movement in the traditional sense to inhabiting it—exploring how softness can live within strength, how vulnerability might be held inside tight and complex choreographic structures. Rather than resisting virtuosity, we approached it from a grounded, almost pedestrian place—letting technical skill be in service of intimacy, presence, and humanity, rather than spectacle.

“Working with Fran Díaz has been a truly rewarding experience," writes composer Sofia Jen Ouyang. "Our collaboration was shaped by a shared interest in exploring the dynamics between the individual and the collective—the tensions, negotiations, and artistic possibilities that emerge within those relationships. It was fascinating to engage with these ideas first through the lens of music and sound, and then to see them embodied through the physical language of dance. For this project, I composed a percussion trio centered on shifts of energy, resonance, and urgency. The dancers’ sensitivity and responsiveness continually reshaped the music in unexpected ways. This experience has meaningfully expanded how I think about the generative dialogue between disciplines.”

Performer, educator, and choreographer Lucas Valente, like Antinozzi, was inspired in part by the company’s history while working with the Institute. “Vanishing Point is a ballet for 22 dancers, danced en pointe—challenging in scale and coordination," he writes. "It was conceived as a tribute to Balanchine and Robbins. Working within the environment of New York City Ballet, I felt it important to take clear inspiration from its foundational voices. The choreography focuses on group dynamics and the power of collective presence. Rather than emphasizing individual narratives, it explores the sensation of being overwhelmed by a mass—by many bodies moving at once, with shifting rhythms and intensities.

"The title refers to the moment when things disappear—when what was once visible fades from view," he continues. "This idea, both spatial and emotional, shaped the work’s structure and atmosphere. The collaboration with Eunike was essential: we discussed the core concepts early on, and her composition became a driving force behind the pacing and emotional range of the piece." 

The creative foundation for composer Eunike Tanzil's work was similarly about transition, but instigated by contemporary events. “This piece captures the duality of destruction and renewal, embodying the essence of a spirit that rises from hopelessness and devastation," she writes. "Inspired by the Los Angeles wildfires, the music paints a journey through chaos, loss, and resilience. As the piece unfolds, a melody emerges, symbolizing hope, renewal, and the unyielding strength to rise once more.”