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The Washington Ballet announced on Tuesday, Oct. 24, that Edwaard Liang will become its next artistic director. He will also helm the Washington School of Ballet.
Liang, 48, succeeds Julie Kent, who served as artistic director from 2016 to 2023. In July, she began her tenure as co-artistic director of the Houston Ballet. Before he arrives in D.C., Liang will finish the 2023-2024 season with BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, where he has been artistic director for 11 seasons.
Like Kent, Liang is a retired professional ballet dancer. He trained at the School of American Ballet in New York and joined the New York City Ballet in 1993. Five years later he was promoted to soloist, a dancer who performs solo and supporting character roles. In 2001, Liang left the company to join the Broadway musical Fosse. The next year, Jiří Kylián invited Liang to join Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague, where he started to seriously choreograph dances.
Liang’s name may sound familiar: His choreography has come to Washington before, including five original works with our hometown ballet company. The Washington Post’s dance critic Sarah Kaufman has had mostly positive reviews.
“Liang’s ‘The Infinite Ocean’ was like a living prayer,” Kaufman wrote in a 2018 review. She compared his work to a “quick, sexy beach read” in another review, praising his “pure escapist ballet.”
But not all of his works were hits. In 2012, Kaufman critiqued the Washington Ballet’s !Noche Latina! program for over-relying on cultural cliches, specifically citing Liang’s dance choreography for a potion of the program. “I didn’t believe in its characters or their emotions—Liang didn’t give me time,” Kaufman wrote.
During his 11 seasons in Columbus, Liang choreographed 21 pieces for BalletMet. He told the Post, however, that he wouldn’t choreograph “at the same clip” here in Washington.
Liang, who was born in Taiwan and raised in Marin County, California, was the first Chinese American to lead an American ballet company with BalletMet. He will be the first person of color to lead Washington Ballet. He and his husband will relocate to D.C. in the spring of 2024.
Trinidad Vives, who is currently serving as acting artistic director of TWB, will lead until Liang fully transitions into the role. Her departure brings the total number of women working as artistic directors at the largest 50 ballet and classically based companies in the U.S. down to 12, according to Dance Data Project’s Leadership Report, published earlier this month.
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