NYC Ballet Revives Balanchine's Rare 'Pithoprakta'

By Elena Vasquez

New York City Ballet is presenting "Pithoprakta," a rarely seen work by George Balanchine, and Suzanne Farrell is the one bringing it back. That pairing names the story: a Balanchine muse restoring a Balanchine rarity on the company he built.

The work itself resists easy description. The source material characterizes it as tense and eerie in tone, a dance whose atmosphere sits closer to unease than to spectacle. Farrell's task, per the same account, is to bring that charged quality back to life for today's audiences.

What makes this revival rare?

The word "rarely seen" carries the weight here. New York City Ballet performs Balanchine constantly — his works form the core of its repertory. "Pithoprakta," by contrast, sits at the edge of that canon, seen seldom enough that each return counts as an event rather than a routine repertory entry.

The source describes the piece in one further register: as "a laboratory for new movement." That phrase, quoted directly from the source, frames the work not as a finished monument but as a site of experiment.

Who is doing the restoring?

Suzanne Farrell. She is the named figure behind the revival's staging, working with New York City Ballet on the material. Her involvement anchors the project's credibility: the revival depends on a dancer close to Balanchine's practice carrying the choreography forward.

The source gives her role plainly: she "brings a tense and eerie dance back to life." That is the claim, and it belongs to her.

Why does the tone matter?

Tense and eerie are not the default adjectives for a night at New York City Ballet. The company's signature Balanchine is often brisk, bright, musical. "Pithoprakta" cuts against that grain, and the contrast is precisely what makes the rarity worth watching.

The laboratory framing deepens the point. A work treated as a testing ground for movement invites audiences to watch process, not just product — steps being invented in real time on stage.

What should audiences watch for?

Three things follow from the source material alone:

• The tense, eerie atmosphere Farrell is charged with reviving
• The status of the piece as a rarity within NYCB's otherwise Balanchine-heavy repertory
• Its character as "a laboratory for new movement," in the source's own words

The takeaway

A rarely seen Balanchine work returns to New York City Ballet under Suzanne Farrell's stewardship. If the revival lands as the source describes — tense, eerie, experimental — it offers something the company's core repertory rarely does: Balanchine as hypothesis rather than inheritance, tested again on the stage he made famous.

For audiences tracking the edges of the canon, this engagement is the one to catch.