CONTEMPORARY BALLET | ARTIST FACULTY

Since 1999, under the artistic leadership of Stephen Mills, Ballet Austin has emerged as one of the nations’ premiere dance organizations. The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nations’ best-kept secrets” in 2004. In his inaugural season as artistic director he attracted attention from around the United States with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed in Dance Magazine as “…sleek and sophisticated.” He has led the company through four tours to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC including their Ballet Across America Festival. The company has performed Mills’ work in New York at The Joyce Theater as well as on tours of Canada, France, Italy, Israel and China. 

Known for his innovative collaborations, Mr. Mills has worked collaboratively with such luminaries as Grammy Award-winners Asleep at the Wheel and Shawn Colvin, visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, DJ Spooky, and internationally renowned flamenco artist José Greco II. 

With over thirty years of experience, Mr. Mills has created more than 40 works for companies in the United States and abroad. His ballets are in the repertories of such companies as The Hong Kong Ballet, Ballett Augsburg (Germany), American Ballet Theater Studio Company, Washington Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Atlanta Ballet, Colorado Ballet, BalletMet/Columbus, Dallas Black Dance Theater and Texas Ballet Theater among others. In 1998, he was the only American choreographer awarded Prix d’Auteur at the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis in Paris, France. In 2004 he was awarded the Steinberg Award for choreography at the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur in Montreal. Mills has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Anti-Defamation League for his work Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project as well as the Visibility Award from The Human Rights Campaign. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the national dance service organization Dance/USA. He has also been active as a teacher at the national landmark, Jacob’s Pillow summer dance program. 

Mr. Mills has performed with a wide variety of companies, dancing a very diverse repertoire. He was a performing member of the world-renowned Harkness Ballet and The American Dance Machine under the direction of Lee Theodore. He also performed with the Cincinnati Ballet and The Indianapolis Ballet Theater among others. He has danced principal roles in the Balanchine repertoire as well as works by Choo-San Goh, John Butler, Ohad Naharin, Vicente Nebrada, Domy Reiter-Soffer and Mark Dendy. 

Mills has been invited to present his work Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project for Holocaust Remembrance Day at the United Nations in New York. Additionally he has presented a TED Talk about the work and was recently invited to contribute a podcast about this ground-breaking work for the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. He has been a keynote speaker for a discussion of artistic representation of the Holocaust, the first of its kind in Israel, at the Acco Festival along with representative from Yad Vashem. Mr. Mills has been awarded a Warren Fellowship at the Holocaust Museum Houston.

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