2026 Dance Teacher Awardee Zvi Gotheiner Redefines the Ballet Classroom
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Ballet isn’t typically thought of as a relaxing activity. But in Zvi Gotheiner’s open class at New York City Center, dancers are asked to find ease—and joy. “He gets people to actually work with and enjoy their physicality rather than fight against it,” says Alison Clancy, who performed with his company, ZviDance, for 15 years.
Nothing is rushed. Even if the schedule says class begins at 10, students usually gather and stretch before class begins at 10:15. Most barre exercises are repeated twice so dancers can settle into the movement. “At the end of the first exercise, he makes you stand for a moment after the music stops and says, ‘Make sure both feet are relaxed completely, even on the floor, right side, left side.’ And you get this moment to just sink into both of your feet,” says choreographer Vicky Virgin, who’s been taking Gotheiner’s class since 2007.
Born in Israel, Gotheiner first fell in love with dance as a teenager after seeing a performance by Batsheva Dance Company. He later performed with Batsheva, along with choreographers like Joyce Trisler and Eliot Feld, before founding ZviDance in New York City in 1989, and becoming known for luscious, visceral choreography.
Gotheiner says he began teaching almost by accident while at Batsheva. “There was a need for someone to teach the second company, and I was there,” he says, nonchalantly. He found being at the front of the studio became a form of meditation for him. “It releases the negative looping in my mind,” he says. “It’s good to be involved with other people, to be useful.”
In the four decades he’s been teaching his open class at City Center, it’s become something of an institution. Star dancers from New York City Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater train alongside older adult beginners, and everyone is treated with equal respect. (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre artistic director Adam McKinney, who’s been taking Gotheiner’s class for 20 years—now online—adds that Gotheiner welcomes dancers experiencing financial hardship, too.)
“Zvi’s always been like, ‘Come in, bring what you can do, and let’s build on that,’ ” says NYCB associate artistic director Wendy Whelan.
Gotheiner says he intentionally offers an alternative to ballet’s hierarchies and judgments about body type. “I try to find a point of humanity to connect to each dancer and elevate their talent and their beauty, and acknowledge their effort,” he says.
McKinney says Gotheiner trains dancers to find a sense of freedom in their movement, and trust the body’s natural intelligence. For instance, in contrast to the common correction to “lengthen the spine,” Gotheiner encourages students to simply enjoy the natural length of their spines as they are.
Unsurprisingly, many dancers come to Gotheiner when they’re healing, thanks to “the very slow, safe, methodical space he creates for exploration,” as Clancy puts it. Whelan, for instance, took his class regularly while recovering from a hip injury. She fell in love with his long, thoughtful combinations that felt like choreography, and now channels him when she teaches.
“He taught me to think much more about the human being in front of me, how they align themselves energetically and find a correctness with efficiency and calm,” Whelan says. (For his part, Gotheiner credits renowned teacher Maggie Black with teaching him that the value of alignment lies not in aesthetics but efficiency.)
After having a stroke in 2021, Gotheiner initially feared that his time in the dance world was over. But he’s continued to teach—and he’s ended up bringing an even more open approach to movement and accessibility. Virgin says now, from his wheelchair, he addresses the entire class often. “We get these mini-lectures,” she says, “about energy and movement and tension, and how you can’t actually ‘pull up’ because you’re as high as you’re going to be. Your body is beautiful, so just relax and leave it the way it is.”
