Benjamin Millepied

Born in Bor­deaux and raised in Sene­gal, Ben­jamin Millepied trained at the Nation­al Con­ser­va­to­ry in Lyon, then at the School of Amer­i­can Bal­let in New York. He joined the New York City Bal­let in 1995 and became the company’s star dancer six years lat­er, all while devel­op­ing a pro­lif­ic chore­o­graph­ic career. A clas­si­cal and con­tem­po­rary chore­o­g­ra­ph­er deeply inspired by music, he gives birth to his works out of the scores and artists with whom he col­lab­o­rates, fus­ing sound and move­ment into immer­sive expe­ri­ences. As Direc­tor of Dance at the Paris Opera Bal­let from 2013 to 2016, he launched a dig­i­tal plat­form and a med­ical dance pro­gram, as well as com­mis­sion­ing numer­ous cre­ations from con­tem­po­rary chore­o­g­ra­phers. He co-found­ed L.A. Dance Project in 2012, then Paris Dance Project in 2022. Among his recent projects are the shows Romeo and Juli­et at La Seine Musi­cale and Me.You.We.They with the com­pos­er Nico Muh­ly, the musi­cal com­e­dy Grace inspired by the life and music of Jeff Buck­ley, and Pierre Boulez’s Rit­uel at the Paris Phil­har­mon­ic. Hav­ing chore­o­graphed and per­formed in Dar­ren Aronofsky’s Black Swan in 2010, Ben­jamin Millepied turned to direct­ing in 2023 with the roman­tic dra­ma Car­men, which he also cowrote, star­ring Paul Mescal, Melis­sa Bar­rera and Rossy de Palma.