Amar Ramasar

Amar Ramasar, born December 9, 1981, in the Bronx, New York City, is an American ballet dancer and former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet who also appeared on Broadway between 2018 and 2020. His father, of Indo-Trinidadian descent, served in the United States Marine Corps and later worked as a computer technician. His mother, Puerto Rican by heritage, was a registered nurse.

Ramasar's introduction to performance came at age ten, when a public school music teacher, impressed by his creative abilities, encouraged him to audition for TADA! Youth Theater. Out of more than 300 children who tried out, Ramasar was one of only two selected. Because both of his parents worked full-time, he learned to navigate the New York City Subway independently, traveling from the South Bronx to the studio on the Lower East Side for daily rehearsals. He took his first dance lesson in 1993 at the Henry Street Settlement House's Abrons Arts Center. That same year, at age fourteen, he auditioned for and was accepted into the School of American Ballet, the training institution for prospective New York City Ballet dancers. His family had no financial means to support his dance education, and he relied entirely on scholarships throughout his studies. His early years at the school were marked by difficulty; he was behind his peers in both technique and athleticism, some of whom had begun training as young as six. Teacher Olga Kostritzky played a role in persuading him to remain committed to ballet rather than pursue acting. Peter Martins, then director of both the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, contributed to Ramasar's development by providing him ten minutes of partnering instruction after each class. Ramasar also studied at the American Ballet Theatre's Summer Program and The Rock School for Dance Education, and received strong recognition at the School of American Ballet's year-end workshops. In 2000, he received the Mae L. Wien Award.

Ramasar joined the New York City Ballet as an apprentice in 2000 and entered the corps de ballet in 2001. Martins cast him that same year as the Cavalier in The Nutcracker, a performance that marked the first time his father watched him dance. He was promoted to soloist in March 2006 and to principal in October 2009. As of 2010, he was reported to be the only person of color holding a principal position at NYCB. He appeared in the 2010 film NY Export: Opus Jazz, a documentary about that ballet, and was featured in the social studies trade textbook Meet the Dancers by Amy Nathan. His work at NYCB drew attention from critics at The New York Times as early as 2003, when a review praised his performance in The Infernal Machine. Subsequent Times coverage in 2005 described him as never less than fully engaged in performance, and in 2006 named him among the rising stars of the New York City Ballet. In January 2019, Ramasar made his debut at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, performing in the ballet Carmen with choreography by Jiří Bubeníček.

In 2018, Ramasar was suspended without pay and subsequently fired from NYCB after it was determined that he had shared explicit photographs of female company dancers without their knowledge or consent. On September 15, 2018, former School of American Ballet dancer Alexandra Waterbury filed a lawsuit naming Ramasar, the New York City Ballet, the School of American Ballet, and several other individuals. The American Guild of Musical Artists challenged his termination, and on April 19, 2019, a union arbitrator ruled that while suspension was an appropriate disciplinary measure, dismissal constituted too severe a punishment. The arbitrator ordered Ramasar's reinstatement to the company. In July 2021, NYCB announced that Ramasar would retire in May 2022, following his performance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In her 2021 memoir Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina, NYCB dancer Georgina Pazcoguin described a pattern of unwanted physical contact by Ramasar during company classes over a period of years. Ramasar denied that allegation.

Alongside his ballet career, Ramasar appeared on Broadway in Carousel and in the musical West Side Story, with his Broadway work spanning 2018 to 2020.