The ballerina Ashley Bouder will retire next month after a 25-year career with New York City Ballet, including 20 years as a principal dancer, the company announced on Wednesday.
“It’s a little surreal,” Bouder said in an interview. “I’m kind of up and down about it. I’m excited to do it, and to see what I can do next, but it’s a little hard.”
The announcement comes on an auspicious date for both Bouder and New York City Ballet: Bouder was promoted to principal dancer exactly 20 years ago in 2005, and Jan. 22 is the birthday of George Balanchine, the company’s founding choreographer.
On Feb. 13, Bouder, 41, will give her farewell performance in the title role of Balanchine’s “Firebird,” which she first performed in 2001, less than a year after joining the company.
“It’s something that has been part of my soul forever,” she said.
Bouder was just 17 when she was thrown into that first performance, after the dancer slated to perform the title role fell ill. She learned the role in two hours — an hour to learn two solos, and an hour to learn the pas de deux. And because she was new to Stravinsky’s score, she was pushed out from the wing to start on the right note. She has danced “Firebird” with numerous partners in the years since.
“It’s what I always thought I would dance in my last show,” she said. “I didn’t really consider anything else.”
Bouder, City Ballet’s most senior ballerina, got her start with the company at 16 in a summer program at the School of American Ballet, which is affiliated with the company, in 1999. She was invited to continue her training that winter and was soon flying through the ranks: named as an apprentice with City Ballet in June 2000, and a member of the corps de ballet a few months later. She was then promoted to soloist in 2004, and to principal the next year.
Critics frequently praised her prowess onstage. Writing for The New York Times, Gia Kourlas called Bouder a “technical powerhouse” in 2016, and Alastair Macaulay lauded her as “a brilliant virtuoso ballerina” around that time. Bouder also championed women in ballet, calling for gender parity within the company and spotlighting female composers and choreographers in her projects outside the company.
Though she’ll bid adieu to the stage at Lincoln Center, Bouder plans to keep dance close. After her final bow, she said she would spend her time choreographing and teaching, and continuing her work with the Ashley Bouder Arts Project, the company she founded to promote diversity in the performing arts world.
“It’s very symbolic,” Bouder said of her final City Ballet role. “The firebird, you know, she gives her feathers, she gives herself, and at the end, she has nothing left. I feel like that’s kind of a poetic way to end a career.”
