Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago

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BEHIND THE BALLET WITH ELIZABETH KAYE, ABT's Dance Historian

This installment of our 2025 Summer season BEHIND THE BALLET dives into THE WINTER’S TALE. Receiving its New York Premiere during ABT’s 2025 Summer season, The Winter’s Tale is an award-winning modern ballet classic, based on Shakespeare’s play and packed with emotional turmoil and compelling atmospheric designs, featuring choreography by two-time Tony Award® winner Christopher Wheeldon and an original score by Joby Talbot.

BEHIND THE BALLET WITH ELIZABETH KAYE, a series of talks with ABT's Dance Historian, renowned ballet lecturer, and New York Times #1 best-selling author. Each BEHIND THE BALLET provides a deep dive into the 2025 Summer season ballets: SWAN LAKE, Wayne McGregor's WOOLF WORKS, GISELLE, THE WINTER'S TALE, and SYLVIA.

Purchase your tickets for THE WINTER’S TALE at the Metropolitan Opera House from July 1–5.
🎟 bit.ly/ABTMet25_TWTBTB


Elizabeth Kaye is a renowned dance historian, and a New York Times #1 best-selling author. Her association with ABT began in 1989 and throughout the 1990’s she wrote about ABT’s dancers and repertory for the Arts pages of The New York Times. Her dance writing has also appeared in Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Playbill.

She is the author of "American Ballet Theatre: A 25 Year Retrospective", written in 2000 for the company’s 60th anniversary. Recently, she worked with David Hallberg on his book "A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back."

For six years she gave pre-performance talks for ABT at the Metropolitan Opera House and continues to give talks for ABT and for every major ballet company that comes to the West Coast. Additionally, she has taught dance history at UCLA, Cal State, The Kennedy Center, and The University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts.