Dominic Walsh

Dominic Walsh, a former Principal Dancer, and Choreographer with Houston Ballet was born in Elgin, Illinois, and started his training at an early age with Lisa Boehm, Frank Boehm, Warren Conover, and Larry Long in Chicago. He joined Houston Ballet in 1989 and was promoted to soloist in 1993 and principal dancer in 1996. Walsh danced throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.

Walsh has performed all the major classics including Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, Romeo & Juliet, and Manon with international stars such as Nina Ananiashvili and Alessandra Ferri. He danced Houston Ballet’s entire contemporary repertoire, and Ben Stevenson created numerous roles for him, including Marc Antony in Cleopatra. In 1998, Walsh’s work Flames of Eros for Houston Ballet won the prestigious Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography. He won a second Choo-San Goh Award in 2007 for Amadeus for Anita, a 2008 Princess Grace Award for Mozart, and numerous other choreography awards.

From 2002 to 2014, Walsh directed his contemporary ballet company, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater. After the company’s debut in February 2003, Dance Magazine said, “At last Houston has a contemporary dance company on par with its symphony, opera, and ballet companies.” Since then, the company has accumulated honors and built a reputation for taking the techniques and skills of classical ballet into groundbreaking territory. The company’s repertoire features works by Walsh and such iconic choreographers as Mats Ek, Jiří Kylián, Mauro Bigonzetti, and Matthew Bourne.

Walsh has received multiple commissions to set and create works nationally and internationally. They include Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Italy, Medea (2009) and The Sleeping Beauty (2011); American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, Alchemy (2004); London Studio Centre, Sub-Luminus (2010); and New National Theatre, Tokyo, Orfeo ed Euridice (2007) and Wolfgang for Webb(2010). Walsh also served as the Resident Choreographer for Sarasota Ballet of Florida, creating and staging Wolfgang for Webb(2008), The Trilogy (2009), and Time Out of Line (2011).

Walsh lectures and writes about dance, and travels throughout the U.S. and abroad as a guest teacher and coach for both companies and academies. Walsh also stages the works of his longtime mentor Ben Stevenson. Walsh made his film debut as a co-director at the Brussels Short Film Festival with Malta Kano, TX, and published his photo book titles Dominic Walsh Dance Theater in 2015 with company photographer, Gabriella Nissen.