Christopher Ruud

Growing up backstage at the San Francisco Ballet, Ruud was immersed in the art of professional dance, performance and stagecraft from the start. Receiving the majority of his dance training at San Francisco Ballet School, Ruud was hired into Ballet West in 1998. Quickly moving through the ranks, he was named Principal Dancer in 2004. He spent 21 years as a leading artist for Ballet West performing a huge range of classical and contemporary repertoire. Ruud is grateful to have performed all over the United States, and internationally most notably in China, Cuba, New York and at the Kennedy Center receiving glowing reviews. In his time with the company, he danced major roles in the great works of Balanchine, Kylián, Tharp, Forsythe, Ashton, Tudor and Cranko to name a few. He has been personally coached by some of the great names in the ballet world such as Sir Anthony Dowell, Cynthia Gregory, Hans Van Mannen, Bruce Marks, and Anna-Marie Holmes. Ruud has seen success as a choreographer having his ballets performed in the Ballet West Innovations program and at their annual gala performance garnering such awards as a New York Choreographic Institute Fellowship as well as several NEA grants. Ruud directed his own small company RUUDDANCES, which was a regular attraction at the annual Utah Arts Festival, and has toured to Jacobs Pillow. Retiring from being a professional dancer in 2019, Ruud joined the artistic team at Kansas City Ballet that same year. Since taking the position of Kansas City Ballet Second Company Manager & Rehearsal Director for the company he has created and ballet-mastered many new and existing works such as George Balanchine’s Rubies, Lila York’s Celts, and Alexander Ekman’s Cacti, while also spending time in the Kansas City community educating children and adults about ballet and live performance.