The Kennedy Center 2024-2025 Ballet Season sees the return of American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet for their annual engagements, the debut of Birmingham Royal Ballet, plus Philadelphia Ballet, BalletX, National Ballet of China, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet.
The rest of the dance season features other internationally renowned companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Twyla Tharp Dance, Akram Khan, and Acosta Danza.
“To experience the best and newest within dance in the world, audiences must come to the Kennedy Center, the Nation’s Cultural Center.
As curators, we look to the field and take the pulse of what artists and choreographers are telling us. This year, that pulse is loud and clear: companies are pushing the edges of where they have been creatively, while retaining their values and artistry.
American Ballet Theatre stays true to its mission of presenting dramatic tales with Crime & Punishment – but it brings us a story with a slightly different style, featuring daring choreography and a predominantly female creative team.
Akram Khan unites stars of classical Indian dance from across the globe, drawing on his kathak training to create a contemporary dance work.
Every engagement teaches us more about each company’s identity, and there are many exciting worlds to explore.”
Alicia Adams, Vice President of Dance and International Programming
&
Jane Raleigh, Director of Dance Programming
The Kennedy Center 2024-2025 Dance Season Trailer
The Kennedy Center 2024-2025 Ballet Season Schedule
November 27 – December 1, 2024 | Kennedy Center Opera House
Full of warmth and holiday cheer, George Balanchine’s beloved classic The Nutcracker returns in a whimsical production from Philadelphia Ballet, who last performed at The Kennedy Center in 2014 (as Pennsylvania Ballet). With prize-fighting mice, gallant toy soldiers, dancing candy canes, and waltzing flowers, Peter IIyich Tchaikovsky’s timeless score guides young Marie and her Prince through a fantastical dreamworld in this beloved holiday tradition.
December 4-7, 2024 | Eisenhower Theater
BalletX is Philadelphia’s premier contemporary ballet lauded for producing nearly 130 world premiere ballets by over 70 choreographers from around the world. Last seen at Kennedy Center as part of DEMO in 2019, the company returns with:
- Become a Mountain by Justin Peck
- Mapping Out A Sky by Matthew Neenan
- Heroes by Takehiro Ueyama
Created by Peck for Juilliard’s senior class of 2022, Become a Mountain simulates the arc of a mountain climb, unfolding in three parts: a climb to a summit, the emboldened feeling of reaching the peak, and finally, the adrenaline rush of sliding down the other side.
Neenan’s Mapping Out a Sky is an homage to the unique rhythms and rich storytelling legacy of Stephen Sondheim.
Ueyama’s Heroes honors the dedication and perseverance of citizens who played a crucial role in Japan’s recovery after World War II.
January 29 – February 2, 2025 | Kennedy Center Opera House
With its dazzling hybrid of western ballet and Chinese culture, National Ballet of China returns for the first time since they performed in Raise the Red Lantern in 2019, to thrill audiences with its luminous fusion of traditions, telling the story of a family’s Chinese New Year celebration, set to Tchaikovsky’s iconic Nutcracker score.
As a young Chinese girl celebrates the New Year, she embarks on a mystical journey through a world of festive Chinese customs including a scroll of Chinese folklore showcasing the legendary monster Nian, the elegant and graceful Fans, the extravagant dances of Silk and Spinning Top, and more wonders in the Porcelain Kingdom.
February 12-16, 2025 | Kennedy Center Opera House
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment is a devastatingly modern psychological thriller that provided choreographer Helen Pickett and director James Bonas with a startling source for a ballet. Watch as striking movement depicts a young man’s journey towards redemption when American Ballet Theatre returns for their annual engagement at The Kennedy Center.
In the character of Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky writes a protagonist who is, at once, a brilliant student forced to stop his studies due to brutal poverty, a person capable of great warmth and generosity who will give away his last coins to help a stranger, a loyal family member and friend, and an appalling murderer.
March 20-22, 2025 | Kennedy Center Opera House
Complexions Contemporary Ballet, last seen as part of 2017’s Ballet Across America program, is recognized for its new, exciting vision of human movement. Its first full company engagement at the Kennedy Center features For Crying Out Loud, a new work by Dwight Rhoden, set to songs from U2’s acoustic album Songs of Surrender.
March 25-30, 2025 | Kennedy Center Opera House
The whole family will delight in the misadventures of the spirited Swanilda, her foolish sweetheart Frantz, and mad inventor Dr. Coppélius in New York City Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s Coppélia which is based on the book by Charles Nuitter after E.T.A Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann.
This staging by Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova – who was considered a definitive Swanilda – also contains the most authentic of the character dances. In Act III, which is solely Balanchine’s, the story becomes secondary, as the village festivities are presented as a series of dances, culminating in an all encompassing grand finale.
With its colorful costumes and grand sets, this lighthearted romantic romp of mistaken identity has remained one of the best-loved classical works in the ballet repertory.
June 4-8, 2025 | Kennedy Center Opera House
Birmingham Royal Ballet makes a thunderous debut at The Kennedy Center with its thrilling, headbanging hit Black Sabbath – The Ballet.
Drawn to both the band’s work and its musical legacy as the Birmingham’s originators of Heavy Metal, BRB Artistic Director Carlos Acosta brings together three composers and three choreographers, led by renowned Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg and Tony Award®-winning composer Christopher Austin to create a metal symphony over three acts.
Having forged their distinctive sound in Birmingham, the band’s music melds with dance side by side with full orchestrations of legendary Black Sabbath tracks such as “Paranoid” and “Iron Man” as well as new orchestral works inspired by their music—all performed live by the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra.
Featured Photo for The Kennedy Center 2024-2025 Ballet Season of BalletX in Matthew Neenan’s Mapping Out A Sky. Photo by Vikki Sloviter.
