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 Natalia Makarova, the Artistic Director. She was invited to join American Ballet Theatre later that year newly 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 de Mille. Clark went on to dance as a soloist in The Pacific Northwest Ballet where she performed works by George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and Jose Limón. For sixteen years Clark was the Dance Captain and Swing of the Broadway Production of The Phantom of the Opera and had the opportunity to work with both choreographer Dame Gillian Lynn, and with Tony Award®-winning director, Harold Prince.

Clark joined of the faculty of the ABT JKO School in 2008 and was Principal Teacher of the Children’s Division from 2018-2021. She is certified in all levels of the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum and serves on the ABT National Training Curriculum Board of Examiners. She teaches the training curriculum throughout the country and in the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development Master’s Degree Program in ABT Pedagogy where she served as the ABT Artistic Director of that program for three years. She has been an adjunct professor of Dance at both Marymount College and at Pace University. For several years she was a teaching artist for the National Dance Institute and worked extensively in the New York City Public School system helping introduce children to the discipline and joy of dance through performance. She has choreographed for students at the ABT JKO School in both the Children’s and Upper Divisions and for Marymount Manhattan College, St. Paul’s School, and Vassar College.

As ABT’s Children’s Ballet Mistress, Clark has been responsible for staging the children in many productions of the ABT main Company. Most recently 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 student’s choreography in his ABT productions of The Sleeping Beauty and The Seasons. 

Currently Clark is Rehearsal Director for American Repertory Ballet under the direction of Ethan Stiefel.