The Joffrey Ballet was founded in 1956 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, and the 2025-2026 season marks the company’s 70th anniversary.
The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S. is a large-scale, multi-media exhibition celebrating the history of The Joffrey Ballet and its contributions to ballet in the US. It runs from 3 October until 20 December 2025 at Wrightwood 659 in the company’s hometown, Chicago.
The exhibition is organised by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and curated by Dr Julia Foulkes with assistance from former company artist Nicole Duffy. The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S. premiered at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts last year, marking the first-ever major retrospective of the company. It draws from the extensive Joffrey archive acquired by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in 2017.
The exhibition is an opportunity to explore the history and legacy of the company and Robert Joffrey through a rich selection of archival material. The exhibition features newly digitised rare film, including the original performance of the ballet Astarte (1967) and footage of Anna Sokolow’s Opus 65 (1965). Exhibited are costumes, props, pointe shoes, posters, and correspondence, as well as Robert Joffrey’s high school report card, where he declares his intention to be a dancer and join a ballet company… instead, he started one.
Tickets go on sale on Thursday 4 September. Admission is $20 and is available online only at https://tickets.wrightwood659.org/events. Tickets must be bought in advance.
Additional Information
The Joffrey Ballet
Born in 1928 in Seattle as Anver Bey Abdullah Jaffa Khan, Robert Joffrey was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan and Italy, his mother Catholic and his father a devout Muslim. Joffrey experienced ill health as a young child – he wore casts on his feet to correct bowed legs and experienced asthma attacks. Ballet was a way to counter his physical ailments and assert his strength and perseverance. It also became a mission. Joffrey’s vision for a ballet company started from who he was… from an immigrant family without the typical social or physical stature expected in traditional forms of ballet. His company featured a diverse range of dancers and presented a spectrum of dances, from 20th-century classics by Vaslav Nijinsky and Kurt Jooss to the topical pieces of his co-founder, Gerald Arpino, as well as new ballet choreography by Frederic Ashton, Twyla Tharp, and William Forsythe. Joffrey died in 1988 of AIDS at the age of 59.
The Joffrey Ballet became known across the country for its eclectic repertory, travelling to small towns and major cities across the US and the world. To do so required entrepreneurship in addition to perseverance. The company faced failure numerous times, which prompted searches for new sources of revenue, new homes, and a new role for ballet in the US. Moving to Chicago in 1995 with a repertory of works by varied choreographers, dancers with looks and talents beyond idealised stereotypes, and audiences beyond New York, The Joffrey Ballet became a model for dance companies in the US. The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S. tells the story of what made the Joffrey a unique force in the world of dance, demonstrating how the company’s inner workings and history led to it redefining and constructing the future of ballet in the U.S.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is dedicated to enhancing access to its rich archives of dance, theatre, music, and recorded sound—to amplify all voices and support the creative process. As one of The New York Public Library’s renowned research centres – and one of the world’s largest collections solely focused on the performing arts – the Library’s materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, film screenings and performances. The collection at the Library for the Performing Arts includes upwards of eight million items, notable for their extraordinary range and diversity, from 11th-century music to 20th-century manuscripts to contemporary hip-hop dance.
Wrightwood 659
Wrightwood 659 hosts exhibitions on socially engaged art and architecture, on issues facing LGBTQ+ communities, and on Asian art and architecture. Located at 659 Wrightwood Avenue in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighbourhood in a building transformed by Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando, Wrightwood 659 encourages visitors to engage with pressing issues of our time in an intimate and beautiful space.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.