Alastair Macaulay has been chief dance critic of The New York Times since 2007, living in New York.
Before that, he lived and worked in London. He served as chief theatre critic of The Financial Times (for which he also reviewed dance and music) between 1994 and 2007, as chief dance critic to the Times Literary Supplement, and as a leading examiner and lecturer in dance history at various academic institutions in Britain.
In 1983, he was founding editor of the British quarterly Dance Theatre Journal. In 1988 and 1992, he served as guest dance critic to The New Yorker.
In 1998, his biography of Margot Fonteyn was published by Sutton Books. He has contributed to books on the choreographers Frederick Ashton, Merce Cunningham, and Mark Morris.

He first met Matthew Bourne while a teacher of dance history at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance where Bourne was then a student. “Matthew Bourne and His Adventures in Motion Pictures,” was first published in 2000.