Ethan Stiefel

Ethan Stiefel (born February 13, 1973) is an American dancer, choreographer, and director.

He started his dancing career in 1989, when he joined the corps de ballet of New York City Ballet at age 16.

He won a silver medal at the Prix de Lausanne in 1989 and also received a Princess Grace Foundation-USA grant in 1991.

In 1992, he took a leave of absence to perform with the Zürich Ballet, under directorship of Bernd R. Bienert, but returned to NYCB a year later as a soloist.

By 1995, he was a principal dancer with the company.

He was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) from 1997 until July 2012.

He ended his tenure with NYCB in April 1997 when he joined ABT as a principal dancer, from which he retired in 2012.

He danced with the short-lived Mikhail Baryshnikov School of Classical Ballet at ABT.

His dance repertoire includes many key romantic roles in both classical and contemporary ballet.

In 1998, Stiefel was nominated for the Benois de la Danse award as one of the rising stars in ballet.

In 2000, he starred in the film Center Stage, directed by Nicholas Hytner with original choreography by Susan Stroman and featuring Amanda Schull.

He also starred in the sequels Center Stage: Turn It Up and Center Stage: On Pointe.

In 2004, he created a four-week workshop, Stiefel & Students, for aspiring dancers where dance students train and perform with professional ballet dancers.

It is held annually on Martha's Vineyard in the month of August.

The program accepts students aged 12 to 18.

Its rollcall of star guest teachers include Stiefel, Johan Kobborg, Amanda McKerrow, Elizabeth Parkinson, Scott Wise, Marcelo Gomes, John Gardner, Gary Chryst, Ann Reinking, and Alina Cojocaru.

In late 2005, Ballet Pacifica, based in Irvine, California, named him as its artistic director with the aim to relaunch itself as a higher-profile ballet company.

However, after the company failed to raise the funds necessary to support their new vision, its executive director resigned followed by Stiefel himself in April 2006.

He was formerly the dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem where he also choreographed a new production of The Nutcracker.

In 2007, Stiefel made his debut with the Australian Ballet in Nureyev's staging of Don Quixote, for its Melbourne and Sydney seasons, in the role of Basilio.

In 2008, Stiefel was a recipient of the Dance Magazine Award along with Pina Bausch, Sylvia Walters, and Lawrence Rhodes for his role as a leader in the dance field.

Stiefel has appeared as a guest artist with many companies throughout his career including the Mariinsky Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the Australian Ballet, Zurich Ballet, Munich Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, New National Ballet in Tokyo, and Teatro Colón Ballet in Buenos Aires.

The program has been on hiatus since 2008.

In November 2010 Stiefel was announced as the next director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

He was the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet from 2011 to 2014.

His wife is Gillian Murphy, also a principal dancer with ABT.

Born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, he is the only son of a Lutheran minister who became a prison warden in New York; their last name is pronounced "Shtee-fell" and is German for "boot."

Stiefel began ballet training in Madison, Wisconsin at the Monona Academy of Dance at age eight.

He became involved with classical dance through his older sister, who was taking a class.

Before that, both he and his sister took gymnastics classes.

His first ballet teacher, Jo Jean Retrum, was interested in getting Ethan to take class because boys in ballet are a rarity.

He studied for two years at the Milwaukee Ballet School under Ted Kivitt and Paul Sutherland, and at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet before moving to New York City to attend the School of American Ballet on scholarship.

While there, Stanley Williams enrolled him in the company's men's special class where he trained alongside Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Fernando Bujones.

He studied with Baryshnikov himself at the short-lived Mikhail Baryshnikov's School of Classical Ballet.

He took up that position in September 2011.

Stiefel expanded the international profile of the company, programmed new works, created a one-act ballet Bierhalle, and choreographed a production of Giselle.

He gave his final performance as an ABT principal dancer on July 7, 2012, at the Metropolitan Opera House, as Ali the slave in Le Corsaire.

He was widely considered to be "the greatest male ballet dancer in the world or "the most advanced male ballet dancer in the world".

In March 2014, Stiefel announced that he would not extend his contract with the Royal New Zealand Ballet and would return to the United States.

In November 2020, it was announced that Stiefel will take over the New Jersey-based American Repertory Ballet in July 2021 as artistic director.