Alexei Ratmansky, one of the greatest living ballet choreographers, is leaving the American Ballet Theater after 13 years as its artist in residence, the company said on Thursday, noting that it was losing a towering figure who had been a profound creative force.
“Alexei’s extraordinary vision of dance has propelled ballet to heights far beyond what we thought was possible 20 years ago,” Susan Jaffe, the incoming artistic director of American Ballet Theater, said in a statement, adding that his works had “brought ballet into a new era.” The company said Ratmansky would leave in June.
During his long career, Ratmansky, 54, has been lauded for his energy, wit and technical virtuosity, as well as for the eclecticism of his interests, from the revival of forgotten works — including Shostakovich’s ballet “The Bright Stream” for the Bolshoi — to the creation of ballets that draw on both the past and the present, like his “Shostakovich Trilogy” and “Songs of Bukovina” for American Ballet Theater.
“I will always be grateful for my time here,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Announcing his departure, the company said that Ratmansky had been an immeasurable influence and had choreographed numerous ballets, among them classics like “The Nutcracker,” which he reimagined, and “The Sleeping Beauty,” in an opulent production that sought to go back to its original choreography.
He had also been an innovator, refashioning works for the pandemic age. “Bernstein in a Bubble,” a playful virtual ballet set to music by Leonard Bernstein, was filmed without a live audience during the coronavirus pandemic and presented in March 2021 as part of a performance called “A.B.T. Live From City Center: A Ratmansky Celebration.”
In the coming months, American Ballet Theater will also be performing Ratmansky’s “Songs of Bukovina,” a suite of dances set to preludes loosely based on Ukrainian folk songs, in Chicago, Iowa City and Stony Brook, N.Y.
Ratmansky’s work took on added resonance after Russia invaded Ukraine, with Ratmansky, who grew up in Kyiv and trained in Moscow, becoming an ardent supporter of Ukraine. When the invasion began, he was in Moscow working at the Bolshoi Ballet, where he had once been the artistic director; he left immediately and said he was unlikely to return as long as President Vladimir V. Putin remained in the Kremlin. He has also supported Ukraine by building The United Ukrainian Ballet Company, and staging “Giselle” with a group made up of Ukrainian refugees.
“It was exactly like the world was crashing down,” he said of the first morning of the war. “The fact that Russia was bombing Kyiv, where my parents and sister live, and that my family’s life was in danger, was just too overwhelming.”
