Stanton Welch

Stanton Welch was born in Melbourne to Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch, two of Australia’s most gifted dancers of the 1960s and 1970s.  In 1986 he began his training at the late age of seventeen, winning a scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet School.  nbsp;In 1989 he joined The Australian Ballet, where he rose to the rank of leading soloist, performing such principal roles as Des Grieux in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Lensky in John Cranko’s Onegin, Camille in Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow, and Alan Strang in Equus. He has also worked with internationally acclaimed choreographers such as Jiří Kylían, Nacho Duato, and Maurice Béjart.

Welch’s choreographic career developed during his time with The Australian Ballet.  In 1990 he received his first choreographic commission from the company, marking the beginning of a series of commissioned works over the next fourteen years and developing his diverse choreographic style.  For The Australian Ballet he has created The Three of Us (1990), Of Blessed Memory (1991) and Divergence (1994).  In 1995, Welch was named resident choreographer of The Australian Ballet.  As resident choreographer, his works include full-length productions of Madame Butterfly (1995) and Cinderella (1997); Red Earth (1996); X (1999); and Velocity (2003).  In 2005, Welch created a lavish new staging of The Sleeping Beauty for The Australian Ballet.  Madame Butterfly has become a signature work for Welch internationally, and is in the repertoires of Houston Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Atlanta Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, and Boston Ballet.

Welch was named Artistic Director of Houston Ballet in 2003.

Welch has been extremely active internationally, receiving numerous commissions from the world’s leading companies.  For Houston Ballet, he has choreographed Indigo (1999), Bruiser (2000),Tales of Texas (2004), Blindness (2004), Bolero (2004), Nosotros (2005), Brigade (2006), Swan Lake (2006), The Four Seasons (2007), Punctilious (2007), The Core (2008), A Doll’s House (2008), Mediæval Bæbes (2008), Marie (2009), Elements (2009), 40 (2009), La Bayadère (2010) and The Ladies (2010).  For San Francisco Ballet: Maninyas (1996), Taiko (1999), Tu Tu (2003), Falling (2005) and Naked (2008).   For BalletMet: Evolution and Don Quixote, both full-length works.  For Atlanta Ballet: A Dance in the Garden of Mirth (2000).   For Royal Danish Ballet: Ønsket (1998) and Ander (1999). For Birmingham Royal Ballet: Powder (1998).  For Moscow Dance Theatre: Green (2000) and OPUS X (2001), both created for Nina Ananiashvili’s group.

Welch has also staged works for Colorado Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater, The Royal Ballet School, Singapore Dance Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet and Fugate/Bahiri Ballet NY.

Welch’s works for American Ballet Theatre include Clear (2001), Within You Without You: A Tribune to George Harrison and Hereafter (Earth) (2003), set to Orff’s Carmina Burana.