Harriet Clark

Harriet Clark received her professional training at the School of American Ballet.  While a student, she was chosen to perform with “Makarova and Company” on Broadway, and danced as a soloist in ballets with Cynthia Gregory, Anthony Dowell, Fernando Bujones, as well as Natalya Makarova, the Artistic Director. She was invited to join American Ballet Theatre later that year, the first under the directorship of Mikhail Baryshnikov. At ABT she danced a rich array of classical and contemporary repertoire and worked with renowned choreographers including Kenneth MacMillan, Antony Tudor, Twyla Tharp, and Agnes DeMille. Clark went on to dance as a soloist at Pacific Northwest Ballet where she performed works by George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and Jose Limón. Clark enjoyed a long tenure as the Dance Captain and Swing in the Broadway Production of The Phantom of the Opera and had the opportunity to work with both choreographer Dame Gillian Lynn and Harold Prince, the Tony Award®-winning director. As Dance Captain her responsibilities included teaching, rehearsing, and maintaining all choreography and musical staging as well as covering and performing all female ensemble and dance roles.

Clark has been on the faculty of the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School for 15 years and is certified in all levels of the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum. She serves on the ABT National Training Curriculum Board of Examiners and teaches the training curriculum throughout the country as well as in the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Master’s Degree Program in ABT Pedagogy, where Clark was the Artistic Director from 2018-2022. Clark has been an adjunct professor of Dance at Marymount College, Pace University, and Vassar College. She has choreographed for students at the ABT JKO School in both the Children’s and Upper Divisions, for Marymount Manhattan College, St. Paul’s School, and for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre.

As ABT Children’s Répétiteur, Clark has been responsible for staging the children in many productions of the ABT main Company. She worked closely with choreographer Alexei Ratmansky and the children of the ABT JKO School in the creation of his American Ballet Theatre production of Harlequinade and has been responsible for staging the children’s choreography in his productions of The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Seasons.

To round out her dance education, Clark trained with and was a teaching artist for the National Dance Institute. For several years, through NDI, she worked extensively in the New York City Public School system helping introduce children to the joy of dance through music, a pursuit of excellence, and a sense of community. She uses their training methods to inform her teaching at all levels and in a variety of environments.