Plan Your Visit
Photo © Paul Kolnik |
Planning a visit to New York City Ballet is part of the fun and anticipation of coming. If you have not made a visit to a ballet performance before, you might wish to consider a few things before you buy your tickets. These are not hard and fast rules; but just suggestions you might wish to consider.
Weekend matinee programs tend to have greater numbers of children in attendance than evening performances.
If needing to be home by a certain hour is an issue due to commitments or commutation schedules, you might want to consider Tuesday or Wednesday performances which begin at 7:30 pm. End times for all performances are listed throughout the website.
If you are new to ballet, you might want to select a performance that is preceded by a First Position Talk which takes place just outside the Fourth Ring level of the Theater. These docent-led conversations feature interesting information about the ballets about to be seen and give audience members the opportunity to ask questions about the Company, about the dancers or ballet in general. Click here for the First Position Talks schedule.
If you have never seen a ballet before, many people choose to start with a full-length ballet such as Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty or Coppélia. These masterpieces from the 19th century all have storylines, recognizable characters, sumptuous music, costumes and sets. Some of them are dramatic and others are wonderful comedies. These works show the grand tradition of ballet as we have always imagined it during the age of the czars and great courts of Europe.
To see how far ballet has come in the 20th century, particularly under the influence of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, magnificent contemporary composers, and the sheer energy and exuberance of American dancers, you cannot do better than to pick any of the many repertory programs that are at the heart of each NYCB season. These programs are famous for the variety of music that you will hear, the number of brilliant dancers that you will see, and the wide range of choreographic artistry on display. Many of these ballets tend to be more abstract and allow, indeed, invite, the viewer to bring their own imagination and sensibilities to the experience.