Michael Uthoff

Born in Santiago, Chile, Michael Uthoff traveled to New York with a Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship to study at Julliard, School of American Ballet and the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance. As a member of the Jose Limon Dance Company he toured extensively and later joined the Joffrey Ballet where he become a principal dancer. In l972, he joined the faculty at SUNY Purchase and moved to Hartford, Ct. where he established the Hartford Ballet and created over 100 ballets now in companies throughout the world. In 1992, he became artistic director of Ballet Arizona. Mr. Uthoff has been awarded many choreographic grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, has served on the board of Dance/USA, has been a U.S. consultant in dance to many countries and developed cultural policy for the Chilean government. Michael Uthoff founded and directed the Hartford Ballet after dancing with Jose Limon and the Joffrey Ballet, as well as other dance masters at Juilliard. Uthoff left the Hartford Ballet after a 20-year tenure to direct Ballet Arizona from 1992 to 1999. Since then he has choreographed and taught throughout United States and abroad, including The New World School of the Arts, the National High School Dance Festival, Interlochen, Goucher College, the Casals Music Festival, and the Zig-Zag Ballet of Connecticut. The Michael Uthoff DanceTheatre debuted in Arizona in March 2003.