Unity Phelan

Leaping between the roles we inherit and the ones we create. 

By Lucy Mason

Illustration by Em Bennett

Since the start of her career, Unity Phelan has captivated audiences night after night as a dancer with New York City Ballet. In 2021, she was promoted to the rank of principal dancer, performing in hundreds of ballets and emerging as one of the company’s defining artists along the way. This fall, she brought that experience uptown to teach in the Barnard Dance Department. 

I have seen Phelan perform many times—she’s one of those performers who leaves you wanting to get up and dance yourself in the middle of a show. Her artistic choices bring grace and effortlessness to even the most demanding roles. Phelan and I met in the lobby of Barnard Hall on a busy Tuesday afternoon before her 4:10 p.m. ballet class. We talked about the works that have marked different phases of her life, motherhood at ballet companies, how dancers are advocating for fair compensation, and the rhythms of teaching as she enters a new chapter.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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The Blue & White: Has anything surprised you about being on the other side of the studio, teaching rather than taking class? What lessons from your career that you find yourself returning to as a teacher?

UP: Absolutely. It’s so fun being a teacher because I still consider myself very heavily a student. I’m still learning in my career. I think it really rounds out any sort of training you’re doing if you then try to teach anyone anything. It’s been really fun because I know I’m a fair amount older than the students, but I do like to treat them like my peers, and I like to treat them like adults because they are adults. Everyone in the class really wants to be there. I can tell, which makes it so wonderful. I find myself telling a lot of stories and sharing a lot of things that I’ve been told throughout my career, and then I’ll go into my own ballet class at Lincoln Center the next day and be like, ‘Oh, I gave this note yesterday. Maybe I should apply it myself.’ That happens far too often, but it’s been really, really fun, and the students here are fantastic. 

B&W: Throughout your tenure in the company, you have danced in hundreds of ballets. Are there particular works that shaped your identity as an artist?

UP: The most important Balanchine ballet that shaped me is Agon. I learned the pas de deux while I was at The School of American Ballet with Jock Soto and Darci Kistler. I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I loved it. I knew I loved the way that that ballet made me feel. And then a whole slew of events happened. I got into the company and I debuted in the pas de trois, which is one of the earlier sections in that ballet. I’ve since learned that Damian Woetzel came to see that performance, and he asked Albert Evans, ‘Who was that?’ And Albert was like, ‘Oh, that’s Unity. She’s going to be special.’ From there, I went to the Vail Dance Festival and met Heather Watts. Two years later, she put me in the pas de deux with Calvin Royal. A couple of years ago, I debuted it in the company. So, it’s a through line for me. A ballet that I’ve experienced in a lot of different phases of my life. The reason I’m able to teach this semester is because I’m currently expecting my first child, which is very exciting. And, the ballet that I plan to return to the stage with in the spring is Agon. It’s one that I love and I feel comfortable in. I know what I’m getting myself into with it, and it always teaches me something new. 

B&W: As you mentioned, you and your husband are expecting. Over the past few years it seems that there has been a big shift in how the dance world, in particular ballet companies, have adapted to performers also being mothers. Do you feel these changes are substantial, or do they remain more symbolic than structural? Where is there still room to grow?

UP: The changes are definitely very real. I was so terrified to tell John Stafford [Artistic Director of New York City Ballet] and Wendy Whelan [Assistant Artistic Director of New York City Ballet] that I was pregnant. So much so that I didn’t tell them for a really, really long time. I performed up until I was 18 weeks. And then after that, I told them. Because I was pretty small, they were like, ‘Oh, you could probably do the fall season.’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna be 22 weeks. At that point, that might be pushing it. I think the audience will be able to tell that I’m pregnant.’ 

New York City Ballet is actually a parent-friendly organization. I’ve seen a lot of other dancers go through this at the company, and it’s been super positive. If I was in an organization that was not as positive, I probably would not have taken the step at this point in my life. I would have waited a little bit longer. 

B&W: Did knowing you were pregnant have any effect on how you thought about your dancing or performance?  

UP: I found out I was pregnant during our spring season, in May of this year. I was dancing the hardest spring season I’ve ever danced in my life. I had two, sometimes three, ballets a night. I danced 38 performances. In my head, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m still gonna be pregnant at the end of the season. There’s no way I’m gonna be able to hold on to this pregnancy. It’s not going to happen.’ But your body is super resilient and I was fine. I really took a second before every time I went on stage. I told myself, ‘I really have to enjoy this moment, because there’s a high chance that I might not be back on this stage for a whole year. So let’s have a good time out there. Enjoy the moment, enjoy my partner, enjoy the audience.’ 

After the spring, when I started dancing again for Saratoga and in Vail, I started telling the partners that I was dancing with because I didn’t want anyone to be bamboozled when I announced it. If any partnering things felt weird, we could change them. Everyone was super excited for me. The last performances that I did were at the Joyce in the fall, and at that point, everyone knew. I knew that was going to be my last performance until I come back to the stage in the spring. It was really special to have those shows. My husband was so nervous. It was hilarious. He came to one show, and he was like, ‘I’m not coming to more. You need to do this and be okay, and then come home.’ I’m still taking class. I just now stopped turning and doing hops on pointe. I’m still running around and taking dance cardio with my trainer.

B&W: The dancers at New York City Ballet are currently undergoing contract negotiations over fair compensation. This fall, company dancers chose not to attend the Fall Fashion Gala and released a public letter, signed by you and many of your colleagues, calling for wages that reflect the rising cost of living in New York City. What informed your decision to sign that letter?

UP: We have a tentative agreement with the New York City Ballet and the dancers’ union, AGMA. We were at a standstill for a long time because during the pandemic, the dancers took cuts, and then there was a snap-back clause in that contract that if we reached 2019 level ticket sales, everything, all those cuts that we took, would snap back to the pre-cut level. However, since 2020, inflation in the city has been insane. We have some younger dancers really struggling to pay their rent. A lot of people don’t live near Lincoln Center. I don’t live near Lincoln Center, but that’s an absolute choice. But a lot of people can’t really afford the basics. There are no rent control apartments in the way there used to be. It was very clear to the negotiating committee and AGMA that we needed a substantial increase just to meet inflation levels in the last five years. That’s where we were stuck with the back and forth. We’re not going to accept something lower than what inflation has already been, not accounting for what it could continue to be in the next three years. Thankfully, we have reached an agreement, which is fantastic, because I don’t think anyone wanted the New York City Ballet Nutcracker not to happen this year. It’s our golden standard Nutcracker in New York City. 

The Fall Gala was a moment that has never happened before in New York City Ballet history. The dancers took collective action. We thought it was important that we still performed the show. We did not boycott the show. We did not strike the show. We did our jobs. What we did not do was attend the dinner with the donors or the red carpet for the press. No dancers were visible, except for on stage doing our jobs. We felt it was a way to signal that we were united and we’re not going to break from this group of empowered dancers to make anyone happy, to make board members happy, to make the directors happy, to make our administration happy. It was a really special moment, and it’s been amazing to watch. Especially this younger generation of dancers who are not afraid. They’re not worried about the implications of collective action on their careers in the way that we were almost told to be when I was younger, which I think is a really empowering and beautiful thing. 

B&W: Over your career there are certain roles you have returned to time and time again, like you mentioned earlier with Agon. How do you keep these roles feeling alive and new each time you perform it? Do you ever find yourself finding new layers in pieces you have performed countless times before?

UP: My trajectory at New York City Ballet has been very wonderful. I honestly don’t think I would change a thing about how I went through the stages of my career. When I got promoted to principal, it was right as Maria Kowroski retired, and then Teresa Reichlen retired very quickly thereafter. So all these parts that I had been yearning to dance for years, the door swung wide open, and I was able to jump into all of them. That year, I debuted in around 25 ballets. It was insane. I was so tired. I remember John Stafford saying, ‘I’m just worried you’re going to get bored. You’ve just debuted in all of these ballets. You don’t have a lot left to conquer.’ I looked at him, and I was like, ‘At this company, I will never get bored.’ That’s because coming back to a role is more fun than dancing it for the first time. You know you can do it. Especially the hard ballets, you can be like I can do this. It’s possible. You are a different dancer every time you come back. 

For me, especially coming back now to ballets I’ve only danced two or three times, it’s really fun to feel like a better, more well-rounded dancer. I always find a new way of working. You learn where to breathe, to take it easy, and where to push harder. Dancing with a different partner also does that. I love dancing ballets with my friends. There are ballets that I’ve done since I was super young. While I’m not performing, I get to hand those parts down to the younger generation, to let them try them out and get their feet dirty with them. As a senior principal, it’s really fun to watch other people take on new roles.

B&W: Outside of the company, you’ve performed in films and television shows, most recently the series Étoile but also John Wick and I’m Thinking of Ending Things. How do you approach dance that isn’t solely for the stage? Does performing for the camera require a different mindset or way of moving? 

UP: I love being on set. I’m Thinking of Ending Things and John Wick both kind of fell into my lap. I had so much fun on those sets that I was like, if another opportunity like this presents itself, I should go for it. That’s what happened with Étoile. It was an amazing experience. What I like about working on film is that you can watch the playback immediately and say yes or no. We did Rubies, and I was my own worst critic. One of our company repertoire directors, Craig Hall, was there. He was like, ‘That looked great!’ I was like, ‘No, play it back. I want to see it.’ Dancers are perfectionists. On stage, you can’t clap your hands twice and start over as much as you wish you could sometimes. So I loved that I could actually stop, run it back, look at it, and decide where I wanted to fix different things. I loved that it was possible.