For MDT Sr. Dancers

Item Description

1.5 Hour In-Person Private Lesson with Pierre Vilanoba (for MDT Senior Students)

Born in Lille, France, Pierre trained at the Conservatoire de Lille and The Paris Opéra Ballet School, beginning at age seven. After dancing with Paris Opéra Ballet for eight years, rising to the rank of Sujet, he joined San Francisco Ballet as a soloist in 1998 and was quickly promoted to principal dancer in 1999. His lead roles in Paris and San Francisco include the Prince in John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid and Aminta in his Sylvia, Onegin in John Cranko’s Onegin, Othello in Lar Lubovitch’s Othello, Orion in Mark Morris’ Sylvia, Benvolio in Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo & Juliet, Abderam and Jean de Brienne in his Raymonda, and Rothbart in his Swan Lake, Albrecht in Helgi Tomasson’s Giselle, Romeo in his Romeo & Juliet, Prince Desiré in his The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried and von Rothbart in his Swan Lake, Espada in his Don Quixote, and the Nutcracker Prince and Snow King in his Nutcracker. While in Paris and San Francisco he participated in the creation of principal roles in works by Neumeier, James Kudelka, Jorma Elo, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Val Caniparoli, Tomasson, Yuri Possokhov, Matjash Mrozewski, and others.

Vilanoba’s broad repertory includes ballet’s by Rudolf Nureyev, Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Marius Petipa, Serge Lifar, Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Serge Diaghilev, Victor Gsovsky, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Angelin Preljocaj, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Sir Frederick Ashton, David Bintley, Harald Lander, Anthony Tudor, Jacques Garnier, Lila York, Caroline Carlson, and Mats Ek. He has performed at galas around the world and in several ballet films with the Paris Opéra Ballet, including Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet. In December 2008, Vilanoba was featured as the Snow King in the PBS Great Performances broadcast of Tomasson’s Nutcracker.

In 1999 Pierre worked with famed fashioned photographer Herb Ritts on a collection produced for the French Vogue's millennium issue. His images have appeared in several books of Herb Ritts' photography as well as the traveling exhibition, HERB RITTS L.A. STYLE, curated in 2012 by The Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Since 2012, Pierre has been teaching and coaching in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad.