IU Jacobs School of Music Ballet Department

The snow has started to melt in Bloomington but we are still thinking about the flurries on the MAC stage this past Nutcracker! 🌨️

Thank you to for the beautiful photos 🌨️

3 more Nutcracker shows to go this weekend! Come see the show tonight at 7:30 pm and tomorrow at 2 and 7:30 pm! Link for tickets and the livestream in our bio 🍭

Beautiful moments from last week captured by

Jumping into our second weekend of Nutcracker shows! If you missed it last weekend, come catch the performances this Friday and Saturday 🎄🎁

Photos by in Sasha Janes’ The Nutcracker

JUST 3 DAYS until the Mouse King faces the Nutcracker in battle on the MAC stage ⚔️

In the meantime he’s been spending his time lounging around near the Eskenazi Museum and dancing around the Showalter Fountain!

The Hoosiers are 12-0 and UNDEFEATED and the Mouse King is celebrating the big win! Who knows, maybe will let him on the team next year….

The Nutcracker countdown continues with only one week until opening night✨

We caught the Mouse King hanging out by the Sample Gates! Where will he be off to next?

Jacobs School of Music Ballet 2025-2026 Season

Fall Ballet

OCT 24, 25 | 7:30 PM
OCT 25 | 2 PM

Chopiniana
Mikhail Fokine

In 1972, New York City Ballet premiered this version of Mikail Fokine’s Les Sylphides, widely thought to be the first ballet about solely mood and dance. Restaged by Russian-born prima ballerina Alexandra Danilova to the music of Chopin, its sleek and minimalist aesthetic showcases numerous woodland nymphs, or sylphs, dancing in the moonlight.

Allegro Brillante
George Balanchine

Balanchine described this work set to the strains of Tchaikovsky as “Everything I know about ballet in 13 minutes.” The leading bravura role of this joyful piece that challenges the dancers’ technical prowess at every level was created on Maria Tallchief, the first significant American prima ballerina and the first Native American to attain that status.

This Bitter Earth
Christopher Wheeldon

A beautiful and poignant pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s Five Movements, Three Repeats. The music, originally mixed by Robbie Robertson for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, layers Dinah Washington’s evocative rendition of Clyde Otis’s “This Bitter Earth” over the strings of Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” creating a haunting soundscape for the dancers.

World Premiere
Gianna Reisen

Gianna Reisen is the youngest person in history to have been commissioned to choreograph for the storied New York City Ballet. She will bring her unique artistic vision to Jacobs for several weeks to create her latest work, with the students of the IU Ballet Department to music by Johann Strauss II.

Jacobs School of Music Ballet 2025-2026 Season

The Nutcracker

DEC 5, 12, 13 | 7:30 PM
DEC 6, 7, 13 | 2 PM

Jacobs faculty choreographer Sasha Janes shatters stereotypes in his reimagined version of this classic ballet, telling the story from the perspective of curious young Marie.
With assistance from her Aunt Drosselmeier, Marie learns to unlock the power of her creativity to take the audience with her on an incredible adventure.
This contemporary take on a fantastical story still features the iconic score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky—and leaves us wondering where reality stops, and imagination begins.
Now in only its third season, this cutting-edge adaptation has already made such a splash, it will be aired on PBS this year—so be sure to check your local TV listings!

Jacobs School of Music Ballet 2025-2026 Season

Spring Ballet
APR 3, 4 | 7:30 PM APR 4 | 2 PM

Pas de Dix
George Balanchine

This dance for 10 includes solos, two pas de deux, a duet for two women, and a quartet for four men, concluding with virtuoso movement for ballerina to excerpts from Alexander Glazunov’s Raymonda ballet score. Balanchine danced in Marius Petipa’s original production of Raymonda at Russia’s Marlinsky Theatre, seeding his eventual creation of this work.

Her Door to the Sky
Jessica Lang

Jessica Lang’s Her Door to the Sky was commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her Door to the Sky premiered at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, August 24, 2016. The following year marked the centennial celebration of legendary American painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s first solo exhibition in New York. Her Door to the Sky is inspired by O’Keeffe’s Patio Door series that she painted between 1946 and 1956.

World Premiere
Sasha Janes

True to his unique vision, this world premiere by Jacobs professor Sasha Janes will push the boundaries of classical ballet technique and partnering in the contemporary style. This new work will be choreographed to a score by Michael Torke, who has been hailed as one of the most inventive composers of our time. Having choreographed to part of this score in the past, Janes is thrilled to have the opportunity to revisit Torke’s compositions and to build two new movements to complete this ballet.