Patrick Armand is a French retired ballet dancer, and the director of the

San Francisco Ballet School San Francisco Ballet School was founded in 1933 as part of the San Francisco Operatic and Ballet School when Gaetano Merola, the founder of the San Francisco Opera, perceived a need for an institution where dancers could be trained to perform in ...

since 2017.

Early life

Armand was born in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

, France, where he studied with Rudy Bryans, his mother Colette Armand, and at the Ecole de Danse de Marseille. In 1980, he won the Prix de Lausanne. In 1981, he joined the Ballet Théâtre Français, rising to principal dancer in 1983.The same year he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier award for his performance of Bejart's songs of a wayfarer which he performed with Rudolf Noureev From 1984 to 1990, he was with

English National Ballet English National Ballet is a classical ballet company founded by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin as London Festival Ballet and based in London, England. Along with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet and Scottish ...

as a principal dancer, and then joined

Boston Ballet The Boston Ballet is an American professional classical ballet company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams and Sydney Leonard, and was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. I ...

. Armand has been a jury member of the Prix de Lausanne on several occasions since 1998. He served as ballet master and also as a faculty member at Teatro all Scala in Milan until 2010. It was at this point that he took over as the Principal of the San Francisco Ballet School Trainee program. From 2012 to 2017, Armand was associate director of the

, when he succeeded Lola de Avila, becoming director in 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armand, Patrick Living people French male ballet dancers English National Ballet principal dancers Year of birth missing (living people) San Francisco Ballet dancers Entertainers from Marseille Prix de Lausanne winners Boston Ballet dancers People from Marseille