New Moves: Episode 5

Meet Choreographer Helen Pickett

Helen Pickett is a San Diego, California native. Helen has created over 40 ballets in the U.S. and Europe. From 2012-2017, she was Resident Choreographer for Atlanta Ballet. The Crucible, her new full length for Scottish Ballet, which premiered at Edinburgh International Festival, has won two awards, UK Theatre Critics Award and the Herald Angel Award. The Guardian newspaper called it, “…a riveting gift of a show.” Helen won Best Choreographer and Best Dance Production for her full length, Camino Real, in 2015. Critic, Manning Harris wrote that Camino Real would “become a legend in the dance world.” In 2014, she won Best Choreographer for The Exiled.

In June 2020, Helen started work on Home Studies, Dance for film, a Zoom Choreography Triptych. She made this work from June through Mid-August, for dancers from Boston Ballet, Royal Swedish ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadians, Charlotte Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Theatre of Harlem. It was shown at Virtual Pathways Dance Festival in September 2020. In August 2020, Scottish Ballet premiered, Trace, a duet created for film, in My Light Shines On: An Evening with Scottish Ballet for the Edinburgh International Festival.

From 2005-2020, Helen choreographed work for: Boston Ballet (6 works), Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet West (2 works), Dance Theatre of Harlem, Semper Oper/Dresden Ballet, Vienna State Opera, Scottish Ballet (3 works), Pennsylvania Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Alberta Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Charlotte Ballet(2 works), Atlanta Ballet (4 works), Washington Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (2 works), Louisville Ballet (2 works), Ballet X, and Smuin Ballet(2 works). In addition, she choreographed for the Chicago Lyric Opera, Les Troyens, and, in London, an evening length, multi-media musical, Voices of the Amazon.

Visit helenpickett.com for her full biography.