Works & Process Presents The Trail of Early Balanchine Archives with Emily Coates
Company:
Works & Process
Works & Process presents The Trail of Early Balanchine Archives with Emily Coates in partnership with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The free event takes place on Thursday, October 23, 2025 at 6PM at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. RSVPs are requested; click here to reserve your spot.
Dancer, writer, performance-maker, and Yale professor Emily Coates spent two years mapping far-flung artifacts related to George Balanchine found in archives throughout the northeast United States. This research became part of her Works & Process commission, Tell Me Where It Comes From, scheduled to premiere in New York this November. A former dancer with New York City Ballet, Coates searched in holdings at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Harvard's Houghton Library, Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Archives at Jacob's Pillow, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and New York City Ballet Archives, among others. In this artist talk, Coates shares the idiosyncratic trail of ephemera and people she encountered along her journey to move closer to the source of his work, from a great remove, through archival shards. She will be joined by members of her creative team and fellow performers Derek Lucci and Charles Burnham, and special guest Adam Lenz, Public Engagement and Programs Manager at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Join us for this unique opportunity to see what goes into creating a new work about the afterlife of a legendary choreographer.
Emily Coates received the School of American Ballet's Mae L. Wein Award for Outstanding Promise and went on to perform internationally with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp, and Yvonne Rainer. Widely commissioned and critically praised, her choreographic projects transform the marginalia of archival findings, collective memory, literature, and science into new forms. A Dance Research Fellow of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division (2019) and Fellow of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (2016), she is a Professor in the Practice at Yale University, where she founded the program in Dance Studies.
SEATING POLICY
Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff.
STANDBY LINE
If registration is sold out or has ended, do not fret! We welcome you to come to the Library regardless of registration status and wait in our standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released. While this is not guaranteed, we will do our best to get you into any of our programs.
ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL
ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.
BRUNO WALTER POLICY
Please note that any unoccupied seat will be released five minutes before the show begins and holding seats for anyone beyond that is prohibited. There is no food or drink allowed inside the venue.
AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING
Programs may be photographed and recorded by and at the discretion of the Library for the Performing Arts and will post signs indicating as such. If you would prefer your image not be captured, please let us know and we can seat you accordingly. Attending any program indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any and all purposes of the New York Public Library.
Works & Process Lead Donors
Lead funding provided by Adam and Abigail Flatto, Christian Humann Foundation, Leon Levy Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Stephen Kroll Reidy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Caroline M. Sharp, The Evelyn Sharp Foundation, The SHS Foundation, and Eugene and Jean Stark.
Additional support provided by Jody and John Arnhold, Jeff and Susan Campbell, Cate Caruso, Stuart H. Coleman and Meryl Rosofsky, Paul Cronson, Duke Dang and Charles E. Rosen, Lucy and Philip Dobrin, Elizabeth Sharp Edens and Wes Edens, The Fanwood Foundation, Bart Friedman and Wendy Stein, Agnes Gund, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Barbara Ritchin, Denise and Andrew Saul, and Randall Sharp.
Works & Process is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
About Works & Process
Championing performing artists and their creative process at each step from studio to stage, Works & Process produces fully funded residencies and presents events that go behind the scenes, blending artist discussion and performance highlights. Works & Process events transcend the proscenium, encouraging audiences to spectate and participate beyond the stage, and culminate in receptions in the Guggenheim rotunda to continue the conversation.
Works & Process produces over 25 creative residencies annually. Expanding from our bubble residency program created during the COVID-19 pandemic, Works & Process now has a network of over a dozen partners in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. In over 100 Works & Process residencies, supporting over 1,000 artists, incubated works have been recognized with awards and grants, and have toured nationally—and internationally with the U.S. State Department. These out-of-town residencies provide 24/7 studio access, on-site housing, access to health insurance enrollment, industry-leading artist fees, and a transportation stipend to facilitate uninterrupted creative process.
Beyond the Guggenheim, we also partner with organizations across New York, including 92NY and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division. During the summer, we curate and present free outdoor dance programs with Manhattan West and City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage.
Works and Process, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. Tax ID: 13-3592291
Stay connected: @worksandprocess
