Ethan Stiefel

Ethan Stiefel (born February 13, 1973) is an American dancer, choreographer, and director. He was a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) from 1997 until July 2012. He was the artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet from 2011 to 2014. His wife is Gillian Murphy, also a principal dancer with ABT. Early life and training Born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, he is the only son of a Lutheran minister who became a prison warden in New York; their last name is pronounced "Shtee-fell" and is German for "boot." Stiefel began ballet training in Madison, Wisconsin at the Monona Academy of Dance at age eight. He became involved with classical dance through his older sister, who was taking a class. Before that, both he and his sister took gymnastics classes. His first ballet teacher, Jo Jean Retrum, was interested in getting Ethan to take class because boys in ballet are a rarity. He studied for two years at the Milwaukee Ballet School under Ted Kivitt and Paul Sutherland, and at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet before moving to New York City to attend the School of American Ballet on scholarship. While there, Stanley Williams enrolled him in the company's men's special class where he trained alongside Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Fernando Bujones. He studied with Baryshnikov himself at the short-lived Mikhail Baryshnikov's School of Classical Ballet.