Amar Ramasar

Amar Ramasar (born December 9, 1981, Bronx, New York, U.S.) is an American ballet dancer who was a principal dancer with New York City Ballet (NYCB; 2009–18 and 2019–22), known for his versatility, exuberance, and athleticism.

Early life

Ramasar was of Indo-Trinidadian and Puerto Rican descent. He grew up in the Bronx. In his youth he demonstrated a gift for performing, winning recognition as a storyteller and debater. At the age of 10, he auditioned for TADA! Youth Theater, a New York City-based troupe that staged original productions. He was one of only two children selected to join the troupe from 300 applicants at a Bronx audition. Ramasar was introduced to classical dance by Daniel Catanach, a choreographer affiliated with TADA!; he showed Ramasar a video of George Balanchine’s 1957 ballet Agon, a study in contrasts created for a black man and a white woman. Inspired by the video and encouraged by Catanach, Ramasar auditioned (1993) for NYCB’s School of American Ballet (SAB). He received a scholarship to SAB’s boys’ program

At age 12 he took his first ballet class, studying with dancers much his junior. Ramasar struggled to catch up with his peers and envision a place for himself in a profession that featured few elite male dancers of color. But he persevered to become an NYCB apprentice in 2000 and a member of the company’s corps de ballet in 2001. Promotions to the ranks of soloist (2006) and of principal dancer (2009) followed.

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Professional career and controversy

Ramasar danced in a wide spectrum of styles, ranging from Balanchine’s austere “leotard ballets” to Jerome Robbins’s jazzy numbers. In 2005 Ramasar, while still a member of the corps, was cast by NYCB director Peter Martins in his first principal role, as the Cavalier in Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. He later received accolades for his interpretations of Phlegmatic in Balanchine’s 1946 ballet The Four Temperaments and an unruly sailor in Robbins’s 1944 dance Fancy Free. In 2011 he added the pas de deux from Agon to his repertoire.

Ramasar was often selected to appear in young choreographers’ groundbreaking works. Justin Peck featured him in Paz de la Jolla and ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes, which premiered in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Ramasar was spurred by Alexei Ratmansky to move with grace to an unforgiving tempo in Pictures at an Exhibition, created in 2014. For those and other achievements, Ramasar received a Bessie Award for outstanding performer in 2015. The following year he originated starring roles in Peck’s The Most Incredible Thing and Christopher Wheeldon’s American Rhapsody. In 2018 Ramasar made his Broadway debut, appearing in a revival of Carousel. He earned acclaim for his performance as Jigger Craigin.

Ramasar also performed before the camera. He appeared with an ensemble of NYCB dancers in Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes’s 2010 film NY Export: Opus Jazz, a cinematic restaging of Robbins’s eponymous 1958 “ballet in sneakers.” In addition, Ramasar appeared in Ballet 422, Lipes’s 2014 documentary about the creation of Paz de la Jolla.

In 2018 Ramasar made his Broadway debut, appearing in Carousel. Later that year he and Zachary Catazaro, another principal dancer at NYCB, were suspended by the company over their purported involvement in the sharing of explicit photographs and videos of women; Chase Finlay, also implicated in the scandal, had resigned. In September Ramasar and Catazaro were fired. However, in April 2019 an arbitrator ordered that they be reinstated, ruling that NYCB should have only suspended the dancers. Ramasar, who had been performing with the Rome Opera Ballet, returned to NYCB and the following month appeared in the company’s production of Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. He later starred as Bernardo in a Broadway revival of West Side Story (2020), though his casting drew protests; the musical’s run was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 Amasar announced that he would be retiring the following year. In May 2022 he gave his final performance with NYCB, appearing in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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