Cathy Marston

Photo: Isak Hoffmeyer.

Cathy Marston is a choreographer, artistic director and Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow, a recognition for creativity and innovation in the arts by the Clore Duffield Foundation, based in London.  After education in Cambridge, she spent two years at The Royal Ballet School before launching a successful international career now spanning twenty-five years.

For Marston, stories inform dance, and she inherited a passion for literature from her English-teacher parents.  As Associate Artist of The Royal Opera House for five years, she created a critically acclaimed interpretation of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. Launching her own company, the Cathy Marston Project, she toured the United Kingdom with before the tempest…after the storm inspired by William Shakespeare.  During her six-year tenure in Switzerland directing the Bern Ballett (2007-2013), her British “respect for the playwright” became influenced by the ideas of contemporary German theater and “Director’s Theater” (Regietheater), resulting in her unique, hybrid signature.  She lent new perspectives to old narratives in her versions of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and in her historically-inspired Witch-hunt.  All are danced-stories stripped back to their essence and displaying high quality technique and unflinching expressive integrity.

Marston’s portfolio includes more than fifty works performed in twelve countries.  Among many highlights are creations of Ethan Frome for San Francisco Ballet, Victoria for Northern Ballet (Leeds, UK) in a co-commission with the National Ballet of Canada, The Suit for Ballet Black (London) and Dangerous Liaisons for The Danish Royal Ballet.

In addition, Marston has choreographed for the Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera House, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, English National Ballet, George Piper Dances (Ballet Boyz), David Hughes Dance, The Ensemble Group, Central Ballet, Images of Dance, Encore Dance Company, The Royal Ballet School, London Children’s Ballet, Grange Park Opera, Sonia Friedman Productions, BBC4 and Channel 4, all in United Kingdom; Bern Ballett, Ballett Basel and Ballett des Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland; Ballett im Revier – Gelsenkirchen and Ballett des Theater Koblenz in Germany; Graz Oper Ballett in Austria; Finnish National Ballet; Royal Danish Ballet and Copenhagen Summer Ballet in Denmark; Ballet of the Castle Opera, Sczeczin in Poland; San Francisco Ballet; The Washington Ballet; National Ballet of Canada and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens; Cuban National Ballet and Danza Contemporanea de Cuba; Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts; and Opera Australia.