Alexei Ratmansky

Choreographer

Alexei Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg in 1968 and received his ballet training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. He danced as principal with the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. While still an active dancer, he began a sensational career as a choreographer. Since then he has worked for the most important companies in the world, including the ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, the ballet of the Paris Opera, the Royal Ballet in London, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre or the San Francisco Ballet. He has also created choreographies for dancing stars such as Nina Ananiashvili, Wendy Wheelan, Diana Vishneva and Mikhail Baryshnikov. From 2004 to 2008, Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, for which he created full-length ballets such as The Bright Stream (2003), The Bolt (2005) and Lost Illusions (2011). There he also produced Le Corsaire (2007) and The Flames of Paris (2008) as a combination of reconstruction and new production. Since 2009 he has been associated with the American Ballet Theatre in New York through a long-term contract as artist in residence. In 2014 he staged Marius Petipa's Paquita for the Bayerisches Staatsballett. In 2022 the ensemble presented his choreography Pictures at an Exhibition as part of the three-part ballet evening Passages. With his choreography on three Tchaikovsky overtures, he creates for the first time a world premiere for the Bayerisches Staatsballett. His artistic work has been honoured with many awards. Starting with the Golden Mask for Dreams of Japan (1998), which he was subsequently awarded three more times (2004, 2007 and 2010). In 2005 Ratmansky received the Prix Benois de la Danse for Anna Karenina. This was followed in 2006 by the Dmitry Shostakovich Prize and a London Critics' Circle Award. In addition, he received the Bessie Award and the Dance Magazine Award in the USA, both in 2011. In the same year he was awarded the Dannebrogorden by the Danish Queen Margrethe II. After 13 years at the American Ballet Theatre, he joined the New York City Ballet as artist in residence in 2023.

(Information as of 2023)