Full biography
We are so happy to welcome Ballet Educator and Rehearsal Director, Maestro Cristian Laverde König, to Mostly Classical Performing Arts!
Cristian is an internationally trained ballet educator, rehearsal director and arts leader with over three decades of experience teaching and mentoring professional artists in ballet company and conservatory settings.
He is Rehearsal Director for Armitage Gone! Dance (since 2018) and Tabula Rasa Dance Theater (since 2022), where he assists in creating and staging new works, prepares dancers for premieres and touring, and provides physical conditioning for company artists.
He holds a Bachelor's degree in Classical Ballet from Incolballet and trained at the National School of Ballet in Havana. He is versed in the Cuban Conditioning Method, is a Polestar Pilates certified practitioner, and was coached by Alicia Alonso, Loipa Araujo, Alla Osipenko, Irina Kolpakova, Gelsey Kirkland and Amanda McKerrow, among others.
He teaches open class at Steps on Broadway, Peridance and Broadway Dance Center, and has taught or performed as a guest artist with Gibney Company, New York Theatre Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the National Ballet of Slovakia, the National Ballet of Panama, Ballet Florida, the New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet and many more.
His performing career began in the corps de ballet of Ballet Nacional de Cuba and led to principal dancer with Maximum Dance Company and Milwaukee Ballet. A finalist at the USA International Ballet Competition, he received Colombia's Decreto Notables Vallecaucanos award and Cuba's Best Dance Works of the Year award. His repertoire spans the great full-length ballets, including Don Quixote, Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Romeo and Juliet and Spartacus, along with works by Balanchine, Tudor, Tharp, Graham, Duato and Armitage. Premiere roles were created on him by Karole Armitage, Val Caniparoli and others.
