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Brooklyn Ballet Celebrates 10 Years

10 years ago-- in February 2002-- we created Brooklyn Ballet from whole cloth, as they say.  The company's four essential elements evolved quickly:

• Begun in 2003, the Elevate program has brought ballet to nearly 10,000 children in some of Brooklyn's neediest public schools and has fostered professional ballet pursuits for many of these children through scholarships to Brooklyn Ballet School and support for matriculation at the country's finest professional training programs.
• Brooklyn Ballet School opened the same year and is now bursting at its seams, providing classical ballet training and community dance classes seven days a week to people from all walks of Brooklyn.
• We took ballet to the streets-- literally-- in 2004 with the Ballet's first free outdoor performance in Marine Park.  Take Ballet to the Streets has now performed in community centers, plazas, waterfront piers, senior centers, museums and schoolyards throughout the borough.
• 2005 saw our professional Brooklyn Ballet Company premiere "Mystery Sonatas" in its debut season at Brooklyn's Kumble Theater.  We have created and performed new works each year since, including 2011's "From Baroque to Hip Hop," which garnered a Bessie nomination.

In 2009, we set the stage for a bright Brooklyn Ballet future by moving to a new state-of-the-art home in The Schermerhorn, where we partner with two of New York's most innovative and caring service programs, Common Ground and the Actors Fund.

Yes, we've accomplished a lot in 10 years, but we have big plans for the next decade, too.

We aim to reach 20,000 children with Elevate by expanding to at least one school in each of Brooklyn's 18 community districts; we want to triple Brooklyn Ballet School's capacity; we hope to build our conservatory to develop professional dancers on our home turf, and we plan to continually create new works that advance the art of ballet while expanding our seasons to include residencies and tours.

We are pirouetting (our version of crossing fingers) that you will back our aspirations with a gift this season of giving.

Your support makes it possible for Brooklyn Ballet to let children experience the beauty and mastery of ballet and brings free ballet performances to the neighborhoods of Brooklyn.  It sets gifted children on a path to professional dance careers.  Ultimately, it enables the art of ballet to be a truly inclusive form.

Importantly, your gift also demonstrates to other supporters-- foundations and corporate and government funders-- a broad-based commitment to the growth of this vital art form right here in Brooklyn.

Please give here.

From baroque to hip hop: first home season a success

Ballet’s fate has recently become an issue of popular debate thanks to Jennifer Homans’ Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (November 2010). The author’s bold assertion that ballet is dying is a call to arms for choreographers like Lynn Parkerson, who has been ready and willing to answer for years. In line with this current preoccupation with ballet history and Homans' dire diagnosis, Lynn offered a curatorial nod to ballet’s past conditions and current vivacity in March.

The studio and Performance Space are fully wheelchair-accessible. Click here to read more about Brooklyn Ballet's space in Downtown Brooklyn  ›