Balletic Battlegrounds

The New York City Ballet’s Fall Fashion Gala was unusually tense this year, as the dancers refused to walk the red carpet or attend the post-performance dinner in protest of the standstill on their collective bargaining agreement. A gala boycott was a first for the company, and it was a huge statement given the fact that this generation of dancers lives for events like these, where they gather glitzy content to post to their social media accounts. The other downer was the plot of Jamar Roberts’s world premiere, “Foreseeable Future”—a strong piece about the faceoff between the natural world and technology, with the organic side losing. And so it goes: the artists passionately sounding the alarm about the unregulated, overcompensated tech industry are forever undervalued and underpaid. On a night celebrating fashion, these were tired trends.

Performance

New York City Ballet: Fall Fashion Gala

Place

David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, October 8, 2025

Words

Faye Arthurs

Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley in Jamar Roberts’ “Foreseeable Future.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

This was a shame, because the program was otherwise a solid realization of what the Fashion Gala is meant to be: a true collaboration between the fashion and dance worlds. In two of the three ballets, the costumes were integral to the dances instead of an afterthought. And in the ballet that didn’t hinge upon its design, Gianna Reisen’s “Composer’s Holiday,” the dresses (by Virgil Abloh of Off-White) were chic and unobtrusive.

There were no speeches this year, so Reisen’s short dance kicked off the evening. It premiered at the 2017 Fashion Gala, so it was a recent re-wear, like Kate Middleton pulling from her own closet. Reisen had just graduated from the School of American Ballet when she made “Composer’s Holiday,” and it has a youthful vibe. Nevertheless, she had already developed a sophisticated command of group dynamics.

“Holiday” contained fun nods to Balanchine, as when the corps performed robotic transitions through basic arm positions in a semicircle, à la “Serenade.” Though, like many of Reisen’s works, it featured too many mysterious, unresolved hand gestures. It was a lovely showcase for the leggy Christina Clark, the only member of the original cast to return, Kennard Henson, KJ Takahashi, and the exciting newcomer Mia Williams.

Mia Williams and KJ Takahashi in Gianna Reisen’s “Composer’s Holiday.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

The second dance of the night, William Forsythe’s “Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux,” was older yet. Made in 1993, it counts as sustainable vintage. Yet it felt as fresh as ever in the hands of Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia. Really, it was more of a radically altered garment, as Peck and Mejia are so unlike “Herman’s” famous longtime interpreters, Wendy Whelan (on whom it was made) and Albert Evans. The latter pair flaunted their flexibility and androgyny, but Peck and Mejia are not so loosey goosy in their joints or their gender presentation. They are rather the opposite all around: they are never not in total control of their bodies, and they tend to lean into their natural ladylike and macho tendencies, respectively. Instead, they played up their astonishing control and their chemistry (they are married). “Herman” looks entirely different now, but it is as great as ever. What hasn’t changed over 30 years is the impact of the design. The minimalist costumes by Gianni Versace and Forsythe still look modern, and the addition of short yellow cheerleader skirts for both dancers partway through the ballet still provides an irreverent climax.

Jamar Roberts’s “Foreseeable Future” was as fashion forward as could be. Iris van Herpen clad the two clashing groups of dancers in exquisite, contrasting designs. The techno faction sported white Jetson skirts or unitards in a pseudo-scaly material—a short film before the premiere showed how it was a sort of computer-fabricated snakeskin. The female soloists in the naturalist camp, Isabella LaFreniere and Sara Mearns, had enormous, red-tipped wings of a cellular, honeycomb construction. The fabric was so weightless that sometimes it made them look like they were floating underwater, trailed by jellyfish tentacles. But they mostly resembled fallen or bloodied angels, maybe phoenixes if you’re feeling optimistic. The male soloists, Taylor Stanley and Ryan Tomash, were in nude unitards with voluminous gossamer bell-sleeves, resembling dragonflies.

The electronic score by Arca was also trendy. It sounded like a spaceship was launching when the curtain rose on a black, empty stage. Both groups danced to mechanical sounds and techno beats, though an adagio movement for Mearns and Stanley incorporated muffled piano. Brandon Stirling Baker’s moody lighting also supported Roberts’s themes, with chemical green tones seemingly obscuring a dim sun on the backdrop. In other scenes, Baker carved the space into zones using sallow shadows.

Emily Kikta, Taylor Stanley and the New York City Ballet in Jamar Robert’s “Foreseeable Future.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Roberts’s use of the contemporary style for “Foreseeable Future” was also on trend—or maybe retro. His last piece for the company, “Emanon—In Two Movements,” was by far the most balletic work I’d ever seen him do. In “Future,” he went back to his roots, employing fast-paced, fluid isolations that incorporated pop and lock techniques. In the way he kept his techno group largely rooted yet divided into canons through steps, “Future” reminded me of his pandemic dance for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, “Holding Space.” That work adhered to the rules of social distancing, so it was the only option at the time. There is no reason for this device now, other than it has crept into the contemporary vernacular.

The whole time I was watching “Foreseeable Future” I was thinking about how technology has already infiltrated dance. And maybe post-humanism was part of Roberts et al.’s thesis: the naturalistic wings and skins were made through cutting-edge means after all. From life-saving medical implants to the dastardly microplastics, technology is a part of us now. It has become part of dance too, and particularly the contemporary style, which relies heavily on a planted leg base and spitfire arm moves. I am often reminded of Neo dodging bullets in the Matrix when I see contemporary works—his feet anchored, his back fluid and boneless, his arms flying. It was fitting that Roberts employed this style for “Future,” which lyrically riffed on the man vs. machine plotlines of the Matrix film trilogy. And Roberts used the style for both teams in “Future,” which was telling. Oddly enough, the winged creatures never flew through jumps or lifts or the usual ballet routes. Save for a small, slow lift in the pas de deux, they were as grounded as the wingless army.

In general, big group migrations tend to happen in herds in the contemporary style, not in the filigreed, kaleidoscopic patterns of Petipa or Balanchine. The rootedness and the lumping reflect the way that we immerse ourselves in personal screens and look at smaller and smaller worlds, with some clumping into groups: likes and dislikes, political camps, fan bases. Likewise, contemporary choreographers keep bodies in place and carve them into ever smaller units. As we are on our phones, hands are busy while legs are stationary. Covid parameters surely contributed to these shifts, yet technology influenced them even before that. Our robotic era is also evident in all the jerky isolations. Reisen’s sharp balletic arms in “Holiday” were a “Serenade” tip of the hat, but they were also part of the freeze-frame aesthetic of the contemporary style—and they were widespread in “Future.”

Choreographer Jamar Roberts with the New York City Ballet at the 2025 World Premiere of “Foreseeable Future.” Photograph by Erin Baiano

Roberts is one of the most gifted practitioners of this style, and he held my interest throughout “Future” by ping-ponging between alternately spotlit groups across the stage (flitting between subjects is another hallmark of our technological age). Yet, as is often the case with contemporary dances, I sometimes found the work to be too murky and small scale for the huge Koch Theater. Mearns and Stanley were gorgeous, but their pas de deux was so minutely wrought that I found it hard to see what they were doing—and Baker’s very dark lighting during this section didn’t help (though their faces and wings were beautifully enhaloed).

Relatedly, another funny issue I have with Roberts’s choreography is that I almost always wish he was doing it. He is 6’4” and very long-limbed, so tiny isolations read much better on him. He smartly picked some of the tallest company members for his cast—Mearns, LaFreniere, Tomash, Emily Kikta, Preston Chamblee. But when he came out to bow he still towered over everyone, and I couldn’t help but think that those extra feet would’ve added a lot, texturally, to “Future.” Many choreographers derive their vocabulary from their own physiques; it must be hard to have such an extreme form to translate to other bodies.

Overall, however, “Future” had a clear, powerful message and featured impressive craftsmanship and designs from all involved. And even though it ended on a depressing note, with Mearns and Stanley convulsing on the floor as the techno corps watched, the true spirit of collaboration between Roberts, van Herpen (Marc Happel and the NYCB costume shop deserve credit for the costume construction as well), Arca, Baker, and the cast made for a hopeful footnote to an uneasy evening. The dancers’ solidarity in their contract dispute is a hopeful sign too. They are not ballet robots, and management should not try to extract maximum value from them as such. The good news is that if people can still come together in the name of art (in the studio, at a gala, at the negotiating table), the machines haven’t won yet.

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

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