Atlanta Ballet to Timothee Chalamet: ‘As if you could’

“I just lost 14 cents in viewership,” he added, with a laugh.

Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

The Atlanta Ballet, a 96-year-old institution and the longest continuously operating ballet company in the United States, had something to say about it.

In a recent social media post directed toward Chalamet, the Atlanta Ballet wrote: “Timothee — as if you could … Ballet has survived: Empires, wars, revolutions, technological shifts, and every ‘new entertainment trend’ that followed. Over 400 years and counting.”

The post also invited Chalamet to take a class with the ballet company.

Atlanta Ballet chief marketing director Tricia Ekholm said she was shocked when she heard Chalamet’s comments.

“Why would somebody who’s an artist be that dismissive about other art forms?” she said in a phone call with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s all the same thing. It’s about having that moment collectively, when you’re sitting in the audience, whether you’re at a movie or the opera or the ballet, we’re all working for that same moment.”

The Atlanta Ballet’s social media chair, Amber Times, created the post to highlight the importance and the longstanding history of ballet, and the sheer amount of work and training the ballerinas and artists in the company dedicate to their craft.

“This isn’t a fleeting art form,” Ekholm said. “It’s been here, and it will always be here.”

It shocked her Chalamet would make those comments about an industry his grandmother, mother and sister have participated in. And Ekholm sees many actors with some dance background since it can “help them understand how to move gracefully, how to move within a world, how to use their body to create a character,” Ekholm said.

The 30-year-old actor’s comment that ballet and opera are mediums that “no one cares about” isn’t exactly true, Ekholm said. Sure, ballet may be more niche than film, television or Broadway, but it still draws a devoted audience, something the Atlanta Ballet has particularly seen as its season ticket sales have returned to prepandemic levels.

She said they’ve also seen growth in their “multiplayers” audience, or attendees who purchase tickets to multiple shows throughout the year.

“As an audience member, being able to walk in and sit down and experience something on stage can change your life in that moment,” she said.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Ballet/Kim Kenne

Credit: Photo courtesy of Atlanta Ballet/Kim Kenne

Not only that, but the demand for adult dance classes is on the rise; attendance has grown 50% since the 2023-24 season. More than 1,500 adults take classes with the Atlanta Ballet’s Centre for Dance Education, with every level from beginners to advanced, she said.

Two years ago, the Centre for Dance Education also added two adult classes dedicated to students 60 and older with a focus on mobility and stability, Ekholm said.

And for the first time last year, the center launched an adult dance intensive for beginners and returning dancers that drew about 65 students for the five- and seven-day sessions, and it will return this summer for its second year.

“Whatever art you choose to study, it gives you so much more that you can bring to whatever career you choose,” she said. “Funding that and seeing that continue to grow is important.”

At a time when generating funding for the arts is already a challenge, and when it’s especially scarce in Atlanta, support for all the artistic disciplines is vital.

“There’s a reason that these art forms have been in existence this long, because humans need that kind of release that art can bring,” Ekholm said.