About The Center

The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University (CBA) is an international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new dances, expanding the way we think about the art form’s history, practice, and performance in the 21st century.

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Fellowships

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The CBA Fellowship Program awards residencies to artists and scholars across disciplines to work on projects that expand the way we think about the history, practice, and performance of dance. Applicants are not required to be experts in ballet or dance, but must have an interest in engaging with the art forms.  The fellowship provides space, stipend, and the time to pursue rigorous work. Fellows also gain new colleagues and a broad community of artists and scholars, two communities that do not often meet.

Resident Fellowship

Music Theorist Kara Yoo Leaman (CBA '20) at work in her CBA office. Photo by Joe Carrotta.

CBA-Chelsea Factory Fellowship

Photo by João Menegussi

CBA-Juilliard Fellowship

Photo by Hilary Schwab

Rockefeller Fellowship

Credit: ©Kazim: Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau

CBA-National Sawdust Toulmin Fellowship

Ausia Jones by Guy Henry and Sasha Onyshchenko

Artistic Partnership Initiative

Caili Quan (CBA '19). Photo by Karolina Wojtasik.

Director’s Fellowship

Alumni Benefits

Laure Guilbert (CBA '19). Photo by Joe Carrotta.

Events

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CBA offers several opportunities for public engagement with the work and ideas about dance emerging from CBA and New York University. Click “View All Events” to learn more about these offerings, browse upcoming events, and watch content from past programs.

IN-PERSON: I See you! Stepping Fundamentals and Insights

September 13, 2023 3:00pm EDT

Photo Credit: Jakari Sherman by Temi Kujore

My Life Outloud: A Moving Story of Hope, Featuring Hope Boykin

May 15, 2023 6:00pm EDT

Photo Credit: Steve Vaccariello

Unsettling Classical Bodies: Padmini Chettur in Conversation with Brooke Holmes and Anurima Banerji on the Histories and the Worlds of Contemporary Dance

April 27, 2023 6:00pm EDT

Secrets in the Score: Balanchine and Bizet’s Symphony in C

March 6, 2023 6:00pm ET

Photo of Kara Yoo Leaman by Rosen-Jones Photography
Photo of Jennifer Homans by Brigitte Lacombe

Whose Ballet? Diasporan Waves and Black Genealogies for Dance

February 13, 2023 6:00pm EST

Whose Ballet? graphic courtesy of the Hemispheric Institute

The Body: History and Potential, Isabel Lewis in conversation with Brooke Holmes

November 18, 2022 11:30am ET

Left: Brooke Holmes, no credit
Right: Isabel Lewis by Mathilde Agius

Balanchine’s Serenade: A Conversation with Jennifer Homans and Toni Bentley

May 9, 2022 6:00pm EDT

Left: Jennifer Homans by Brigitte Lacombe
Right: Toni Bentley by Clayton Cubitt

Performance in Contemporary South Africa

March 31, 2022 1:00pm EDT

John Hogg

Why Nijinska is Important

March 21, 2022 3:00pm EDT

Left: Cover of "La Nijinska" by Lynn Garafola
Right: Lynn Garafola

Hope Boykin in Conversation with Thomas F. DeFrantz

November 17, 2021 6:00pm EST

Right: Hope Boykin photo by Steve Vaccariello

Founder & Director

 Jennifer Homans

“If we could create a place – a major research center – where some of the great minds of our time could come together to focus on dance and its related arts, something new and interesting might happen.”

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Right: Hope Boykin photo by Steve Vaccariello

Ballet

Ballet means simply ‘to dance.’ It is a form of poetic gesture.

Physically, ballet is a system of training based on a linear and geometrically proportioned organization of the human body. Ballet is intellectually expansive; it has profound connections to philosophy and mathematics, to manners and religion, to painting and fashion, and to the practices of war and the ambitions of sport. At its origins, ballet was a western art form with roots in the Renaissance. Throughout its history, it articulated a vision of society and civic culture, which was at first courtly and aristocratic and in the 20th century became public and democratic. Today, ballet is practiced world-wide and has incorporated and influenced a wide range of dance traditions and styles.

Like classical training in theater or music, ballet is a skill and a gateway: a necessary grounding for the most radical directions in art. What kinds of dances artists make with it is an open and unrestricted question.