Billy the Kid is a 1938
ballet written by the American composer
Aaron Copland on commission from
Lincoln Kirstein. It was choreographed by
Eugene Loring for
Ballet Caravan. Along with
Rodeo and
Appalachian Spring, it is one of Copland's most popular and widely performed pieces. The ballet is most famous for its incorporation of several cowboy tunes and American folk songs and, although built around the figure and the exploits of Billy the Kid, is not so much a biography of a notorious but peculiarly appealing desperado as it is a perception of the pioneer West, in which a figure such as Billy played a vivid role.