Christopher Rudd

Carolina Ballet: Soloist
Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montreal: Demi-Soloist
Alberta Ballet
Pennsylvania Ballet: Guest
Metropolitan Opera: Guest

Christopher Rudd is a Jamaica-born dance-maker who creates by blending contemporary ballet, modern dance, and at times the aerial artistries. He began dancing at age nine in Miami, Florida in the Thomas Armour Youth Ballet’s Scholarship Program, led by Ruth Wiesen. At 11, Mr. Rudd became the first Black child to dance the title role in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, an accomplishment for which ABC’s Peter Jennings named him Person of the Week in 1991. He attended New World School of the Arts High School and Dance Theatre of Harlem Summer Intensive for four summers on full scholarship.

Mr. Rudd envisioned creating dance from early on. He trained and worked with a variety of artists to develop himself as a multi-faceted choreographer. He has performed with Alberta Ballet, Carolina Ballet as a founding member, and Les Grands Ballet Canadiens de Montreal, achieving the rank of soloist. Mr. Rudd was honored to work on the creation of and dance for Cirque Du Soleil’s Zaia, their first resident show in Asia. Rudd also has performed in the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and guested with Pennsylvania Ballet as well as The Metropolitan Opera for three seasons. Throughout his career he worked with a wide range of choreographers such as Mats Ek, Shen Wei, Didy Veldman, Christopher Wheeldon, Mauro Bigonzetti, Margo Sappington, Mark Morris, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Donald Mahler, Tyler Walters, and Robert Weiss. He also has been featured in works by George Balanchine, Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, José Limón, Ohad Naharin, and Jean-Christophe Maillot.

Mr. Rudd has choreographed for the Alvin Ailey School summer intensive, Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts, Duke University, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Alberta Ballet’s Workshop, Peter London Global Dance Company, Harlem Stage’s E-Moves, Ballet Divertimento in Montreal Canada, and Muiktheater Vorarlberg in Austria. Recently, he was commissioned to create a new work on Dance Now! Miami. His works have been seen in New York; Florida; Connecticut; Texas; North Carolina; Utah; Canada; France; Trinidad & Tobago; and Burkina Faso, Africa.

Mr. Rudd was awarded choreographic residencies at the CUNY Dance Initiative; STREB Lab for Action Mechanics, where he was named one of 2015’s emerging artists and awarded The GO! Emerging Artists Commissioning Program by SLAM; Vendetta Mathea’s La Manufacture in Aurillac, France; and Norte Maar’s Dance at Socrates. In addition to being the first recipient of The New World School of the Arts Alumni Foundation’s Inspiration Grant, Mr. Rudd has been awarded grants from New Music USA, American Dance Abroad, Career Transition For Dancers, Harlem Stage’s Fund for New Work, World Learning Global Development & Exchange, US Embassy Burkina Faso, and Arts Envoy—a program supported by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.

Rudd founded RudduR Dance as a platform to better the world through dance, investigating themes of the human condition to emphasize what unites and binds us.

Rudd has said, “My goal is to communicate through movement by chiseling a work into existence. The search for what a piece says, its relevance, and its confirmation of some truth that deepens our understanding of who we are as humans is my driving force.”