Evoking the Great White Way, Fancy Free is the precursor to Broadway’s On the Town, presenting three sailors and their escapades on shore leave in Manhattan.

In 1944, Jerome Robbins — then a young dancer with Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre)— choreographed his first ballet, a collaboration with up-and-coming composer Leonard Bernstein. The two wanted to bring a modern American sensibility to ballet, and they hit on the perfect concept: sailors on shore leave in New York City, a common sight in those days. The premiere performance of Fancy Free has become legendary, with two dozen curtain calls for the stunned cast, composer, and choreographer, and raves from the bowled-over critics.

Fancy Free was the inspiration for a full-length musical, On the Town, that was also a great success, and Robbins and Bernstein went on to collaborate on another Broadway classic, West Side Story. Of course, each man had many subsequent successes; Bernstein became the music director of the New York Philharmonic and a prolific composer and conductor, and Robbins was the creative force behind many enduring Broadway hits, as well as the choreographer of some of New York City Ballet’s core works. But it was Fancy Free that put Robbins on the map as someone who had a clear eye for creating compelling movement, a deft hand at telling a story, and a creative vision that was unique in the world of theater.

This is the rarely-seen ballet by Jerome Robbins, a pure and unembellished dance for two women set to Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor, K. 511, is to make its revival during NYCB’s Winter 2023 performances after a decades-long hiatus from the stage.

Originally created for the Company’s virtual 2021 Spring Gala, NYCB Resident Choreographer Justin Peck’s Solo features a single dancer whose movements ebb and flow to Samuel Barber’s treasured Adagio for Strings.

A four part avant-garde work, Episodes grew out of Balanchine’s enthusiasm for Anton von Webern’s orchestral music, which Balanchine once wrote “fills the air like molecules.”

In homage to Anton von Webern, Episodes was created to the composer’s complete orchestral works. Balanchine invited Martha Graham to choreograph the first section for her company; he choreographed the second for NYCB, with an additional solo for Paul Taylor, then a member of the Graham company. The work was presented in full for two seasons. Since 1961, NYCB has performed its section alone, without the solo created for Taylor. The final section, Ricercata, is Webern’s orchestration of a Bach composition; Virgil Thomson has described Webern’s music as “a dialect of Bach.”