Second Company @ Home: Episode 3

Parrish Maynard was invited to join American Ballet Theater by then Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov, and danced as a principal dancer at The Joffrey Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. In addition to being a recipient of the Princess Grace Award and the Presidential Scholar Award, he was a silver medalist in the International Ballet Competition. Mr. Maynard has performed in Dance in America, American Ballet Theatre’s ‘Now’, danced Nacho Duato’s Romanso, San Francisco Ballet Lar Lubovich’s Othello in the role of Iago which was created on him. In 2005 Mr. Maynard joined the faculty of San Francisco Ballet School. In his 10 years at San Francisco Ballet, Mr. Maynard choreographed more than 20 ballets for the San Francisco Ballet School, some of which have been danced around the world including Royal Ballet School, Royal New Zealand Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. Most recently, Mr. Maynard serves as Ballet Master for Kansas City Ballet

Christopher Ruud has been a part of the performing arts since birth. Growing up back stage at San Francisco Ballet he was immersed in the art of professional dance, performance and stagecraft. Receiving the majority of his dance training at San Francisco Ballet School he began his performing career on the War Memorial Opera House stage at the age of 9. Mr. 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. Mr. Ruud is grateful to have seen sold out houses in Utah, all over the United States, and internationally most notably in China, Cuba, New York and at the Kennedy Center. Mr. Ruud has directed his own small company, RUUDDANCES, which was a regular attraction in the Annual Utah Arts Festival, and toured to Jacobs Pillow. Having retired from being a professional dancer in 2019, he is thrilled to have joined the artistic team at Kansas City Ballet that same year. Since taking the position of KCB Second Company Manager and Ballet Master for the company, he has created, and ballet mastered the creation of, many new works while also spending time in the Kansas City community educating children about ballet and performance with the Lecture Demonstration program “Studio to Stage”.