More than 77 years after the founding of New York City Ballet, the Company’s 2026 Winter Season holds the remarkable milestone of two landmark world premieres—the 499th and 500th original ballets created for NewYork City Ballet. The 499th work will be Resident Choreographer Justin Peck’s The Wind-Up, premiering on January 29–February 7. Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky’s The Naked King, premiering February 5–25, will be the 500th.
“It’s a whole universe here and there’s so much to be in conversation with,” says Peck, about NYCB’s storied original repertory. “The fact the Company was founded to cultivate new choreography—that it’s not only a priority, but part of its mission—generates a special energy. The dancers here really value the process of making a new ballet, and that spirit keeps the work relevant for the artists and also for the audience, and it’s why the Company continues to thrive,” he says. “Thank God it exists."
“NYCB’s Balanchine style of dancing is more than just specific ballet technique—it’s a whole philosophy that includes different musicality and presentation, different work habits, and a different sense of what ballet actually is,” says Ratmansky. “These numbers prove the unique place NYCB occupies in the world of ballet art, and it’s probably the best historical lineage imaginable to be associated with, isn’t it? A true honor."
As the Company prepared for the winter season, each choreographer previewed their approach to their world premieres.
Justin Peck’s The Wind-Up
Justin Peck’s world premiere will be set to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s third symphony, the Eroica. “It’s incredible music, and it holds a pivotal place in music history, right at the transition between the classical era and the romantic era. So it’s this big bridge that carries music forward, that pushes the form into new territory while still honoring it,” says Peck, who has held the position of NYCB Resident Choreographer since 2014. At NYCB, Beethoven’s music has been used in the repertory, although on rare occasion; Balanchine called choreographing to Beethoven “impossible” and felt that the composer’s work should stand alone in its perfection. Peck understands this position, but is invigorated to try. “For me, it’s not so much a provocation, but a curiosity. I feel that with my residency, my role is meant to challenge whatever the norms are, a little bit.”
The heroic nature of the symphony was born from Beethoven’s despair at the decline of his hearing, and Peck connected the reality of confronting one’s own mortality to the heroic physical struggle that embodies a dancer’s life. “It’s a constant battle for the dancer to maintain their instrument. In a way, they’re having to fight their own facility, to be able to do what they do so brilliantly, to perform at this Olympian level. The choreography definitely has this quality of pushing the dancers to go further than they’ve ever gone.”
Peck chose to work with Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung on the costume design, and Brandon Stirling Baker on lighting design, all longtime collaborators. “There’s something really special about building those relationships through the act of making things. They’re my earliest collaborators, and I wanted to streamline everything as much as possible to really focus on the choreography and the music,” he says about his 26th work for NYCB. “The ballet itself is its own fireworks show.”
Alexei Ratmansky’s The Naked King
Alexei Ratmansky is drawn to little known ballet scores—as he explains, “music written for dancing has this very specific dansant quality that is often missing in other music”—and Jean Françaix’s Le Roi Nu, originally written for Serge Lifar’s 1936 Paris Opera Ballet production, is rarely performed. Ratmansky, who has used Françaix’s musical arrangements for works forThe Australian Ballet and The Royal Ballet, but has not previously choreographed to Françaix’s own compositions, describes the composer’s style as “witty and rhythmically complex but still melodic, almost Stravinskian in its neoclassicism—really good for dancing.” Ratmansky also chose the work for its narrative by Hans Christian Andersen (known in America as The Emperor’s New Clothes), which he calls “hilarious, and very relevant today.”
For the ballet, Ratmansky, who has held the position of NYCB Artist in Residence since 2023, is working with Resident Lighting Designer Mark Stanley—“my dear trusted collaborator—with him I don’t need to worry about anything,” as well as with costume and set designer Santo Loquasto, renowned for his collaborations with choreographers including Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp. Following their previous collaboration on Ratmansky’s The Tempest for American Ballet Theatre in 2013, “I was eager to work him again,” says Ratmansky. “He is a master.”
The premiere, with its narrative framework, will be unlike any of the previous eight works that Ratmansky has created for NYCB. “I am curious to see how the dancers and the audience will respond."
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