Boy from Kyiv

The life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated and influential ballet choreographer of our time.

Alexei Ratmansky is "the most sought-after man in ballet" (The New Yorker). At just thirty-five years of age, he was the youngest person to hold the position of artistic director at Moscow's famed Bolshoi Ballet. He went on to be appointed the resident choreographer at the American Ballet Theatre in New York, a post he holds to this day. He has created magnificent new works for just about every major national ballet that can afford him, breathing fresh, exquisite new life into the allegedly moribund art of classical ballet.

In The Boy from Kyiv, the celebrated dance critic Marina Harss charts Ratmansky's exceptional life: his modest upbringing in St. Petersburg and Kyiv, his early years training at the Bolshoi Academy and sneaking into the company's performances at night, and his dance career spent in Ukraine, Canada, and Denmark. Through these wide-ranging experiences, he developed a singular creative style by fusing Russian and Western sensibilities, which put him on the path to becoming the most influential choreographer at work today. Ratmansky has created more than fifty original ballets for companies across the globe and is renowned above all for having revitalized the "story ballet," eschewing the cool abstraction that dominated twentieth-century ballet in favor of narratively expansive, emotionally vibrant works. Of late, he has also found himself in an unexpected new role as perhaps the most vocal critic of Vladimir Putin in the quintessentially Russian ballet world; Ratmansky has vowed to never work in Russia again so long as Putin remains in power and now leads a newly formed company of Ukrainian refugees in the Hague.

Harss has spent the better part of two decades following Ratmansky's illustrious--and still ascending--career. In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this major artist, she delivers a riveting, deeply human account of the collisions of identities, cultures, and traditions that paved the way for Ratmansky's miraculous ascent to the peaks of artistic excellence.

The Boy from Kyiv is the life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated ballet choreographer of our time.

Alexei Ratmansky is transforming ballet for the twenty-first century. An artist of daring imagination, the choreographer has created breathtakingly original works for the world's most revered companies. He has fashioned a singular approach to balletic storytelling that bridges the space between narrative and abstraction and heightens ambiguity and surprise on the stage. He has boldly restored great centuries-old ballets to their former glory, combining the use of archival research with his own choreographic genius to retrieve detail and color once lost to the ages. And above all, he is renowned for fusing the Western and Eastern ballet traditions, and for drawing on the visual arts, literature, music, film, and beyond with inspired vim, to forge a style that is vibrant, eclectic, and utterly new: one that promises to leave an indelible mark on this venerable art form.

But before Ratmansky was artistic director at the Bolshoi Ballet, resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and generally, as The New Yorker has it, "the most sought-after man in ballet," he was just a boy from Kyiv, sneaking into the ballet at night, concocting his own juvenile adaptations of novels and stories, and dreaming up new possibilities of bodies in motion.

In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this groundbreaking artist, the celebrated dance writer Marina Harss takes us behind the curtain to reveal Ratmansky's fascinating life, from his Soviet boyhood through his globe-spanning career. Over a decade in the making, this biography arrives at a pivotal moment in Ratmansky's journey, one that has seen him painfully and publicly break ties with Russia, the country in which he made his name, in solidarity with his native Ukraine, and take on a new challenge at the storied New York City Ballet. Told with the lyricism, drama, and verve that befits its subject, The Boy from Kyiv is a riveting account of this major artist's ascent to the peaks of his field, a mesmerizing study of creativity in action, and a triumphant testament to ballet's enduring vitality and power.

The Boy from Kyiv is the life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated ballet choreographer of our time.

" A] spirited, engaging biography . . . Ms. Harss analyzes each of Mr. Ratmansky's ballets, skillfully describing them in such vivid detail that you can almost see them . . . A deeply researched portrait." --Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

Alexei Ratmansky is transforming ballet for the twenty-first century. An artist of daring imagination, the choreographer has created breathtakingly original works for the world's most revered companies. He has fashioned a singular approach to balletic storytelling that bridges the space between narrative and abstraction and heightens ambiguity and surprise on the stage. He has boldly restored great centuries-old ballets to their former glory, combining archival research with his own choreographic genius to retrieve detail and color once lost to the ages. And above all, he is renowned for fusing the Western and Eastern ballet traditions, and for drawing on the visual arts, literature, music, film, and beyond with inspired vim, to forge a style that is vibrant, eclectic, and utterly new: one that promises to leave an indelible mark on this venerable art form.

But before Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, the resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, the artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and generally, as The New Yorker has it, "the most sought-after man in ballet," he was just a boy from Kyiv, sneaking into the ballet at night, concocting his own juvenile adaptations of novels and stories, and dreaming up new possibilities for bodies in motion.

In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this groundbreaking artist, the celebrated dance writer Marina Harss takes us behind the curtain to reveal Ratmansky's fascinating life, from his Soviet boyhood through his globe-spanning career. Over a decade in the making, this biography arrives at a pivotal moment in Ratmansky's journey, one that has seen him painfully and publicly break ties with Russia, the country in which he made his name, in solidarity with his native Ukraine, and take on a new challenge at the storied New York City Ballet. Told with the lyricism, drama, and verve that befit its subject, The Boy from Kyiv is a riveting account of this major artist's ascent to the peaks of his field, a mesmerizing study of creativity in action, and a triumphant testament to ballet's enduring vitality.

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year (So Far)

The Boy from Kyiv is the life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated ballet choreographer of our time.

" A] spirited, engaging biography . . . Ms. Harss analyzes each of Mr. Ratmansky's ballets, skillfully describing them in such vivid detail that you can almost see them . . . A deeply researched portrait." --Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

Alexei Ratmansky is transforming ballet for the twenty-first century. An artist of daring imagination, the choreographer has created breathtakingly original works for the world's most revered companies. He has fashioned a singular approach to balletic storytelling that bridges the space between narrative and abstraction and heightens ambiguity and surprise on the stage. He has boldly restored great centuries-old ballets to their former glory, combining archival research with his own choreographic genius to retrieve detail and color once lost to the ages. And above all, he is renowned for fusing the Western and Eastern ballet traditions, and for drawing on the visual arts, literature, music, film, and beyond with inspired vim, to forge a style that is vibrant, eclectic, and utterly new: one that promises to leave an indelible mark on this venerable art form.

But before Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, the resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, the artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and generally, as The New Yorker has it, "the most sought-after man in ballet," he was just a boy from Kyiv, sneaking into the ballet at night, concocting his own juvenile adaptations of novels and stories, and dreaming up new possibilities for bodies in motion.

In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this groundbreaking artist, the celebrated dance writer Marina Harss takes us behind the curtain to reveal Ratmansky's fascinating life, from his Soviet boyhood through his globe-spanning career. Over a decade in the making, this biography arrives at a pivotal moment in Ratmansky's journey, one that has seen him painfully and publicly break ties with Russia, the country in which he made his name, in solidarity with his native Ukraine, and take on a new challenge at the storied New York City Ballet. Told with the lyricism, drama, and verve that befit its subject, The Boy from Kyiv is a riveting account of this major artist's ascent to the peaks of his field, a mesmerizing study of creativity in action, and a triumphant testament to ballet's enduring vitality.