Gillian Murphy
Principal Guest Artist
Gillian is a principal ballerina with American Ballet Theatre,
and in 2012 she also became Principal Guest Artist with the Royal
New Zealand Ballet. Gillian was raised in Florence, South Carolina,
US and received her high school education and advanced dance
training at the University of North Carolina School of the
Arts.
Gillian's repertoire includes leading roles in all of ABT's
current full-length classics and in shorter works by George
Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Jirí Kylián, Antony Tudor, William
Forsythe, Martha Graham, Lar Lubovitch, Paul Taylor, Frederick
Ashton and Agnes de Mille.
She starred as Odette/Odile in ABT's PBS television production
of Swan Lake, and she has appeared in world premieres of new
creations by Benjamin Millepied, Stanton Welch, Jorma Elo, Peter
Quanz, Natalie Weir, John Neumeier, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher
Wheeldon and Twyla Tharp.
Gillian has danced with the Kirov Ballet, the Royal Swedish
Ballet, the Staatsballett Berlin, the Kiev Ballet, and in numerous
other international engagements and galas. In 2009, Gillian was the
recipient of a Princess Grace Statue Award, the organisation's
highest honour.