Jennifer Homans

Homans was raised in Chicago, Illinois, where she trained as a ballerina since the age of eight.[2] By the time she was a teenager, Homans had enrolled in dance classes at the University of Chicago and eventually left the state for more serious training at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and School of American Ballet.[3] Before becoming a writer and scholar, Homans was a professional dancer and performed with the Pacific Northwest Ballet and other companies. By the age of 26 Homans decided to enroll in Columbia University following an injury. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature, she enrolled in New York University (NYU) for her PhD in Modern European History.[2] In 1986, she was cast as the Maiden Aunt/Waltz of the Flowers Dancer/Snowflake in the film Nutcracker: The Motion Picture.[4]

Following her PhD, Homans accepted a position as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU where she wrote her first book Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet.[5] Apollo’s Angels traced back the origins of ballet from the Renaissance to modern times.[6] It was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times, described as "the only truly definitive history of ballet,"[7] and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.[8] However, her claim that ballet was a dying art form received much criticism for being over generalized and unsubstantiated.[9] Art critic Claudia La Rocco rebuffed Homans claims and critiqued the novel for its lack of detail to post-George Balanchine developments to ballet, including William Forsythe.[10]

From 2012 to 2013, Homans was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship as she began writing her second novel, George Balanchine: A History.[11] The following year, she established The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, the first institute of its kind in a major research university, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help "establish ballet as a serious subject of academic inquiry."[12] In its inaugural opening, the institute accepted seven fellows; John Carrafa, Gregory Mosher, J. David Velleman, Heather Watts, Frederick Wiseman, Christopher d'Amboise, and John Michael Schert.[13] Today, CBA is an international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new dances, expanding the way we think about the art form’s history, practice, and performance in the 21st century. As of June 2020, CBA had hosted nearly 150 artists and scholars as fellows.[14]

In 2016, Homans was selected as a New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellow.[15] In 2019, Homans' Center for Ballet and the Arts received a three-year $2 million grant.[16] In 2019 she was named The New Yorker's dance critic, replacing Joan Acocella.[17]

Homans married Tony Judt and together they had two children before his death.[18]