Roughly a year ago, having recently been appointed as principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, Harrison Ball stubbed his toe. It was a normal rehearsal and the injury felt minor, yet an X-ray revealed small hairline fractures.
“Then that led into an MRI, which then we found all these other issues in my foot that I wasn’t aware of. And then it just kind of revealed that my body was pretty damaged,” Ball says. “And then I just kind of had this crossroad moment where I said, ‘OK, do I take another year off from an injury,’ which I’ve done before, and go through the whole struggle of physical therapy and getting back in shape, which is really mentally taxing, and it really just takes a number on your confidence also? And then I just kind of decided, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’”
So after some 12-plus years with the New York City Ballet, Ball, aged 30, has stepped away from the company and is exploring new aspects of his career. Having completed his final performance with the ballet earlier this summer, he is now working to build a career as a freelance choreographer, as well as an actor.
His days look and feel much different now. He logs six to seven hours at the computer, now a freelance choreographer focused on getting commissions. His mental space is different, too.
“In a way, it feels like there’s more going on than before. Because before, and really just for the past year, the focus has been on getting through it, and the focus has been on the [final] performance. So it was like, even when you have time in the ballet world, you feel like you have no time because you have to reserve all your energy. And something that I’ve been really feeling is there’s like a void now, because I had this huge reserve for all the anxiety and all of the kind of intricacies of what it is to be a dancer in a big company,” he says. “I had to hold space for that energy. And now that I don’t have to hold that space anymore, I feel like I’ve lost my marbles. It’s really disorienting, but it’s pretty fresh. It’s a different kind of busy, and I find it actually feels pretty natural for me right now.”
His desire to step away from the company and branch out on his own came to a head with his injury, but it had been building for some time. Ball notes a shift in his time at the company in recent years, following the departure of former artistic director Peter Martins, who retired in 2018 following accusations of sexual assault.
“There’s been a lot of obvious change in the world, and that impacted the ballet tremendously in so many positive ways. But it also disrupted a world that I was really enamored with,” Ball says. “And it’s not to talk about the politics per se, but more that I was following a lot of disciples of Balanchine, and they were all there when I got in the company. I had Peter Martins, who was a huge, huge influence in my life. And when he left and then all of the changes started to happen, a lot of these Balanchine disciples started to die. And we lost a lot of our ballet masters.
“I could see the future of New York City Ballet versus another future that would seem unknown and I’m always more interested in what’s unknown,” he says.
The unknown currently hangs a bit more in the unknown than he would’ve liked, given the ongoing Hollywood strikes, but Ball is making a go of it as an actor. He was set with a part on an Amazon series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, though the project is now postponed, and has a lead in a short film on the way. He got his SAG-AFTRA card after playing a butler alongside Christine Baranski, who is a longtime client of Ball’s fiancé, Zac Posen.
“So there was this nice family rapport on set,” he says. “And I actually ended up getting to keep my name in the promo, so it’s like I’m playing ‘Harrison the Butler.’”
He’s also at work on a memoir, a story of how he got to where he is today.
“I really want to focus on these taboos in the dance world. I struggled with addiction for a really long time. I came to New York really young on my own and lived in my own apartment from 14 on,” he says. “So I kind of had this weird story where it could have gone really bad, and it did for a while, and then I got through it.”
This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.