About Christopher d’Amboise

Fairfax, VA

Born into a family of dancers, Christopher d’Amboise (CBA ’15) has had many careers: dancer, director, choreographer, playwright, teacher, and educator. As a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, Christopher worked closely with both George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, originating works as well as performing major repertoire. On Broadway he costarred with Bernadette Peters in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance, for which he earned a Tony nomination. As a choreographer, Christopher works both in theater and ballet. He has created over 100 works seen worldwide in cities including London, Prague, Paris, Copenhagen, New York, Lisbon, and Istanbul. His ballets have been presented in over 30 companies including the New York City Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Pennsylvania Ballet, National Ballet of Amsterdam, and the San Francisco Ballet. His latest work, Volatizing the Esters, will premier at the St. Louis Ballet. As a playwright, Christopher’s work explores the integration of dance into the storytelling process. His work includes The Studio, a play-with-dance; Revival, the book of a new musical (in development); and Secret Notes at Barnes & Noble, an original musical using songs of various contemporary artists. Christopher also serves as Heritage Professor at George Mason University.

Strange Pull: a choreographer’s guidebook

At The Center, d’Amboise worked on Strange Pull: a choreographer’s guidebook. His book, part choreographic memoir part guidebook, is an analysis of the complete catalog of d’Amboise’s personal choreographic history as well as an investigation of the choreographic practices of Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine.  The book is concerned with illuminating the choreographic process and with the distillation of this exploration into simple, universally applicable tenets.

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