XANDER PARISH

Xander was born in East Yorkshire and began dancing in Hull aged 8. He graduated from the Royal Ballet School with honours in 2005 joining The Royal Ballet in Covent Garden along with his sister, Demelza. In 2010 Xander became the first British dancer to be employed by The Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Xander was promoted to Principal dancer in July 2017 after the opening night of Swan Lake during the Mariinsky Ballet’s London season at Covent Garden.

His awards include the Positano Premia La Danza Léonide Massine Emerging Dancer on the International Scene Award (2014), Best Young Male Dancer at the 1st Taglioni European Ballet Awards (2014) and Outstanding Male Performance (Classical) for Apollo at the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards (2014). In 2017 the University of Hull awarded Xander an Honorary Doctorate and in 2019 he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for services to dance and UK-Russia Cultural Relations.

Xander has been a guest artist with companies including the Stanislavsky Ballet, English National Ballet, Opera National Bucharest & American Ballet Theatre. In 2021 Xander launched balletclass.com, a website showcasing leading dancers demonstrating their own ballet and training classes. In August 2022 Xander joined the Norwegian National Ballet as a Principal Dancer. In November 2022 he became Artistic Director of Reunited in Dance- a project initiated by and generously supported by Elizabeth Segerstrom at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in California bringing together dancers who left Russia & Ukraine.