Keith Roberts Named Ballet Master at American Ballet Theatre, Beg. Sept 2013

American Ballet Theatre has named Keith Roberts, former Principal Dancer with ABT, to the post of Ballet Master. The appointment, which was announced yesterday by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie, becomes effective September 2013.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Roberts trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the School of American Ballet. He joined American Ballet Theatre in 1987 as a member of the corps de ballet and was promoted to Soloist in 1992. In 1997, Roberts was promoted to Principal Dancer with the Company. With American Ballet Theatre, he performed leading classical roles and in numerous contemporary works by such choreographers as Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, Ji?í Kylián, John Neumeier, Nacho Duato, and Merce Cunningham.

In 1998, Roberts debuted in the Broadway production of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake as "The Swan/Stranger." His other Broadway appearances include Fosse (2000), Twyla Tharp's Movin' Out (2002), a role for which he garnered a Tony Award nomination, and Tharp's Come Fly Away. He also appeared in Tharp's Las Vegas production of Sinatra Dance With Me.

As a répétiteur, he has staged works at American Ballet Theatre, Bolshoi Ballet, Boston Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon, Ballet Mainz, Orlando Ballet Theater, National Ballet of Canada, Ballet West, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and Ballet Arizona. In 2008, Roberts was the assistant choreographer for Tharp's Rabbit and Rogue at American Ballet Theatre. He has served as guest ballet master with ABT for the 2012/13 season, a teacher at ABT's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and a company teacher at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Roberts was a member of the inaugural class of the DeVos Institute's 2012 Performers in Transition Arts Management Fellowship and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University.

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Photo of Keith Roberts courtesy American Ballet Theatre, 1994.