American Repertory Ballet

Yue Yin is a choreographer, founder and artistic director of YY Dance Company and the creator of FoCo Technique™. She began her training in Chinese classical and folk dance in Shanghai, China at the prestigious Shanghai Dance Academy and completed her MFA in dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2008. In 2018, Yin founded YYDC, a non-profit contemporary dance company dedicated to the teaching, production and performance of her original choreographic work. Under her direction, the company has recently been presented by Women Move The World season at 92NY, the company also performed at New York Live Arts, Chelsea Factory, BAM Fisher. The company toured to international venues and was invited four times to perform at Schrittmacher Festival in Germany, Belgrade Dance Festival in Serbia. The company has visited Italy many times such as Oriente Occidente in Rovereto, Orsolina28 Creative residency in Moncalvo, Florence Dance Festival, theaters in Modena, Verona and Padova. In 2026, YYDC will engage the first domestic tour to Ohio with Mutual Dance and Dancecleveland.

Yin is the creator of her signature FoCo Technique™ which is a unique contemporary form of dance movement rooted in Chinese classical and folk dance melded with the complex and diverse influences of the immigrant experience. Overall the form grows from Yin’s own blended international background and a deep appreciation for precision, contrast, fluidity and musicality.

Yue Yin was the recipient of the 2025 NYSCA/NAFA Artist Fellow in Choreography. 2021 Harkness Promise Award to recognize her innovation in choreography and education. In 2015, she was the winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago International Commissioning Project, winner of the BalletX Choreographic Fellowship, and an emerging choreographer in Springboard Danse Montreal. She was winner of Northwest Dance Project’s 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Competition in 2013. Yin’s work has been commissioned from acclaimed organizations such as Gibney Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Oregon Ballet Theater, NW Dance Project, BalletMet, Boston Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Limon Dance Company, Alberta Ballet, Balletto Teatro di Torino, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Juilliard School for Dance, USC Kaufman School of Dance, Tisch School of The Arts, Princeton and more.

Lar Lubovitch trained at the Juilliard School and founded the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in NYC in 1968. Over the course of 58 years, he has created more than 120 dances for the company, which has gained an international reputation as one of America’s top dance companies.

Lubovitch’s dances have also been performed by many other major dance companies throughout the world.* Othello - A Dance in Three Acts, was created with the Lubovitch company in collaboration with American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet, and was later featured on PBS’s Great Performances (Emmy nomination).

Film & television dances include Fandango (Int’l Emmy), My Funny Valentine for Robert Altman’s film The Company (American Choreography Award nomination) and, Concerto Six Twenty-Two and North Star for BBC.

His contribution to the advancement of ice-dancing includes concert pieces for numerous Olympic skaters, as well as ice-dance specials for television: The Sleeping Beauty (PBS), The Planets (A&E) (Int’l Emmy nomination, Cable Ace Award, Grammy Award).

Broadway credits include Into the Woods (Tony nomination), The Red Shoes (Astaire Award) and Tony Award-winning revival of The King and I.

In 1987, he conceived Dancing for Life which took place at Lincoln Center’s NY State Theater. It was the first response by the dance community to the AIDS crisis, raising over one million dollars. In 2007, Lubovitch founded the Chicago Dancing Festival. For 10 seasons the festival provided free performances by leading American dance companies and reached over 18,000 people annually.

In 2016, he premiered a new evening-length ballet, The Bronze Horseman, at the Mikhailovsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Some recent awards include: 2007, Chicagoan of the Year (Chicago Tribune); 2008, Chicagoan of the Year (Chicago Magazine); 2011, Ford Fellow (US Artists); 2011, Dance/USA Honors Award; 2012, Prix Benois de la Danse for Choreography, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow; 2013, American Dance Guild Lifetime Achievement Award; 2014, Honorary Doctorate from the Juilliard School; 2015, named one of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures by the Dance Heritage Coalition; 2016, ADF Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement; 2016 Dance Magazine Award; 2018 Martha Graham Award; 2024 Honorary Doctorate from Boston Conservatory; 2025 Martha Hill Fund Lifetime Achievement Award; and 2025 NY Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for Best Choreography (for Many Angels).

In addition to serving as Artistic Director of his company, he is currently a Distinguished Professor of Dance at UC/Irvine.

Ethan Stiefel is an internationally recognized artist, educator, and leader in the performing arts. After serving as American Repertory Ballet’s Artistic Director for over three years, he is currently Artist in Residence. Stiefel was the Principal Guest Instructor at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) from 2016-2021 and the Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) from 2011-2014. Just before being appointed the RNZB’s Artistic Director, he served as Dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) from 2007-2011.

Stiefel began his professional career at age 16 with the New York City Ballet where he quickly rose to the rank of Principal Dancer. He was also a Principal Dancer with Ballett Zürich and joined American Ballet Theatre as a Principal Dancer in 1997. Stiefel gave his final performance with ABT in July 2012.

During his career, Stiefel performed leading roles in all of the full-length classics and danced in an extensive range of shorter works created by the industry’s foremost classical, modern and contemporary choreographers.

Guest appearances include The Royal Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Ballett Zürich, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Hamburg Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Teatro Colón, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Arena de Verona, New National Theatre (Tokyo), Kings of the Dance and numerous tours in the United States, Japan, Russia and throughout Europe.

He starred in the feature film Center Stage and returned to play the role of Cooper Nielsen in Center Stage 2-Turn It Up and Center Stage: On Pointe. Stiefel’s television and video credits include The Dream, Le Corsaire, Die Fledermaus, Gossip Girl and the documentary, Born to be Wild.

As a choreographer, Stiefel created a new staging of The Nutcracker for the UNCSA. He choreographed a one act comedic ballet, Bier Halle, and collaborated with Johan Kobborg on choreographing and producing a new production of Giselle for the RNZB. In 2013, Giselle was adapted into a feature film, directed by Toa Fraser, and was selected for screening in the NZ International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Giselle was restaged and performed in 2015 at the Opera National Bucharest.

Additionally, Stiefel choreographed a new work for the top level of ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, Knightlife, which was performed at the Joyce Theater in New York in April 2016. He choreographed a collaborative work on the ABT Studio Company and the Royal Ballet School, See the Youth Advance!, which had its premiere at London’s Covent Garden, in May 2016. Stiefel created FRONTIER, a new ballet for The Washington Ballet which premiered at The Kennedy Center in May 2017. In the fall of 2018, Stiefel created Overture for the ABT Studio Company and subsequently he choreographed Wood Work for The Washington Ballet in April 2019. In 2021, Beneath the Surface, a short dance film for Northern Ballet Theatre (UK) was conceived by Stiefel. Stiefel’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for American Repertory Ballet had its premiere at the NBPAC in April 2022. Inspired by American musicians and poets, he choreographed Prine Time, a solo commissioned by the Guggenheim Works and Process Virtual Artists Series set to the music of John Prine, and in October 2023 created if, using a song of Blaze Foley’s. 2023 also saw the premiere of the vibrant and virtuosic VARIANTS.

Stiefel was the choreographer for Flesh and Bone, a 2015 limited edition television series for STARZ network.

He has been a guest instructor for many institutions including the Paris Opera Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet School, The Australian Ballet School, Norwegian National Ballet, Ballett Zürich, Ballet de Bordeaux, Opera National Bucharest, John Cranko Schule Stuttgart, Tanz Akademie Zürich, Berlin State Ballet School, Dance Theatre of Harlem, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and The School of American Ballet.

Stiefel was invited to serve on the jury for the Paris Opera Ballet’s 2014 annual promotion examination and was on the jury of the 2015 Prix de Lausanne.

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Albert of Monaco presented Stiefel with the Statue Award of the Princess Grace Foundation, the Foundation’s highest honor, in October 1999. He received the prestigious Dance Magazine Award in December 2008.