Famous Male Choreographers

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Updated June 15, 2019 30.3K views 330 items

List of famous male choreographers, listed by their level of prominence with photos when available. This greatest male choreographers list contains the most prominent and top males known for being choreographers. There are thousand of males working as choreographers in the world, but this list highlights only the most notable ones. Historic choreographers have worked hard to become the best that they can be, so if you're a male aspiring to be a choreographer then the people below should give you inspiration.

This list below has a variety of people, like Mats Ek and Peter Quanz, in it.

While this isn't a list of all male choreographers, it does answer the questions "Who are the most famous male choreographers?" and "Who are the best male choreographers?"
  • Charles Augins is an American actor, dancer and choreographer for stage and screen. A native of Virginia, United States, in 1981 Augins choreographed Ray Davies's first musical Chorus Girls, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London, as well as appearing in Blake's 7 the same year. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer in 1991 for Five Guys Named Moe. He had a small role in Revenge of the Pink Panther as "Vic Vancouver". He is probably best known to television audiences for playing "Queeg 500" in an episode of Red Dwarf. He was also the choreographer for the Red Dwarf "Tongue Tied" dance scene in the episode "Parallel Universe". He choreographed for the movie Labyrinth, as well as voicing for one of the puppets. In 1989 he appeared as himself in the Jeff Goldblum comedy film The Tall Guy, directed by Mel Smith. In addition, he has worked as a singer, performing backing vocals on records by artists such as Amii Stewart and even releasing a solo single, a cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland composition "Baby I Need Your Loving" in 1982.He currently serves as Chair of the Dance Department of Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington DC.
  • Jamie King
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    Jamie King (born 1972) is an American creative director, choreographer, and producer whose work directing concert tours for pop stars has grossed over two billion dollars.
  • Moses Pendleton

    Moses Pendleton (born March 28, 1949) is a choreographer, dancer and the artistic director of MOMIX. MOMIX is a dance company that he formed in 1981 as an offshoot of the Pilobolus, which he had co-founded while a senior at Dartmouth College in 1971. He remained a full-time member with the company until 1980. He choreographs dance sculptures that bring together acrobatics, gymnastics, mime, props, and film.
  • Lar Lubovitch (born April 9, 1943) is an American choreographer. He founded his own dance company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Based in New York City, the company has performed in all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 countries. As of 2005, he had choreographed more than 100 dances for the company. In addition to the company, Lubovitch has also done creative work in ballet, ice-skating venues, and musical theater, notably Into the Woods. He has played a key role in raising funds to fight AIDS.
  • Travis Wall
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    Travis Michael Wall (born September 16, 1987) is an American dancer, dance instructor, and choreographer specializing in contemporary dance and jazz dance. He is best known for his 2006 appearance as a competitor on the second season of the television show So You Think You Can Dance, which airs on the Fox Network. As of 2012, he was a choreographer for the show. In 2011, he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show's seventh season and won the award for his work in Season 11. In 2012, he starred in the Oxygen reality show All The Right Moves, where he, Teddy Forance, Nick Lazzarini and Kyle Robinson launched their own dance company called Shaping Sound.
  • Jack Boyle was an actor and choreographer.
  • Robert Battle
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    Robert Battle (born August 28, 1972 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA) is a dancer, choreographer and the Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
  • Konstantin Mikhaylovich Sergeyev (Russian: ะšะพะฝัั‚ะฐะฝั‚ะธะฝ ะœะธั…ะฐะนะปะพะฒะธั‡ ะกะตั€ะณะตะตะฒ; b. March 5, 1910 (February 20, Old Style) - April 1, 1992) was a Russian danseur, artistic director and choreographer for the Kirov Theatre. When the Kirov Ballet returned to Leningrad from Perm (where it had been moved during the war) Sergeyev became the head choreographer of the company. His first major work was to restage Prokofiev's Cinderella, which is still performed in the present day.His teachers at Leningrad State Choreographic Institute: Mariya Kojukhova, Vladimir Ponomaryov, Viktor Semyonov (Marina Semyonova's first husband). His first wife Feya Balabina was a prima ballerina of the Kirov ballet, as was his second wife Natalia Dudinskaya (second wife). He danced with Dudinskaya at the 1946 premiere of his Cinderella production for the Kirov.Galina Ulanova was his partner between 1930 and 1940. Sergeyev and Ulanova were the first to dance Romeo and Juliet in Sergei Prokofiev's ballet of the same name. Sergeyev was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1957 and a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1991. He was the recipient of four Stalin Prizes.
  • Maurice Hines
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    Maurice Robert Hines Jr. (December 13, 1943 โ€“ December 29, 2023) was an American actor, director, singer, and choreographer. He was the older brother of dancer Gregory Hines.
  • Jason Gardiner
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    Jason Gardiner (born 6 November 1971) is an Australian choreographer, singer,and theatre producer best known for his role as a caustic and controversial judge on the ITV shows Dancing on Ice, Born to Shine and Stepping Out. Gardiner was a judge on the first series of the BBC talent show Strictly Dance Fever. From 2006 to 2011, Gardiner was one of the original judges on the ITV show Dancing on Ice. Gardiner returned to Dancing on Ice for its eighth series in 2013, but the show was cancelled after its ninth series in 2014. He returned as a judge on the show in 2018, before leaving the show for a second time in 2019.In 2006, Gardiner was one of the judges invited to take part in Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice, an Australian version of Dancing on Ice, screened on the Nine Network.
  • David Earle
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  • Peter Randazzo
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  • John Cranko
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    John Cranko

    John Cyril Cranko (15 August 1927 โ€“ 26 June 1973) was a South African born ballet dancer and choreographer with the Royal Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet.
  • Richard d'Alton
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  • Doug Varone

    Doug Varone is an American choreographer and director. He works in dance, theater, opera, film and fashion. He is an educator and advocate for dance. His company, Doug Varone and Dancers, has been performing for nearly three decades.
  • Anh Nguyen
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  • Ton Lutgerink was a dancer and choreographer.
  • Michael Joseph Rooney is an American choreographer. He is the son of actor Mickey Rooney. Best known for his work on a number of music videos, Rooney has won MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography five times.
  • Buzz Miller

    Buzz Miller is an actor and cinematographer.
  • Charles "Chucky" Klapow (born July 5, 1980) is an American choreographer and dance instructor who has performed and choreographed for various performers and several television and stage productions. He is also known for his teachings of the mental approach to dance. Klapow's mother is Filipino and his father is Russian American.
  • John Neumeier (born 24 February 1939) is an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of Hamburg Ballet since 1973. Five years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school for students. In 1996, Neumeier was made ballet director of Hamburg State Opera.
  • Sergio Trujillo

    Sergio Trujillo is a dancer and stage choreographer. Born in Colombia, raised in Canada and an American citizen who lives in New York City. Trujillo was the recipient of the 2015 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer for Memphis and the 2019 Tony Award for Best Choreography for Ain't Too Proud.
  • John Jasperse

    John R. Jasperse (born October 8, 1963) is an American choreographer and dancer. Since 1990 he has been artistic director and choreographer of the New York City-based John Jasperse Company.Joyce Morgenroth describes his work as "wry" and "often spoken of in oppositional pairs" of which the most central is "โ€ฆthe interplay between his tightly conceived structures and his elusive movement style." His dancers are involved in an "interactive choreographic process" and "[s]ets are designed to be integral to the dance," with dancers often moving or otherwise interacting with sets and props.Originally from Rockville, Maryland, Jasperse graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1985; since then he has been based in New York City. He worked 1987โ€“1993 with Jennifer Monson; in 1988 and 1989 he performed with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's company Rosas in Belgium.Jasperse's work has been performed in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Japan, and throughout Europe, including such venues as the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Tanz im August in Berlin. Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project, Batsheva Dance Company and the Lyon Opera Ballet have all commissioned work from him.Among his and his company's many awards, grants, and fellowships are a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award (1998), a Creative Capital Award in Performing Arts, two Bessie Awards (2001 for Jasperse, 2002 for the Company), and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992, 1994, 1995โ€“96) and New York Foundation for the Arts (1988, 1994 and 2000). Jasperse received a 2003 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2011 he was named a Fellow of United States Artists.Jasperse's evening-length works are Rickety Perch (1989), Eyes Half Closed (1991), furnished/unfurnished (1993), Excessories (1995), Waving to you from here (1997), Madison as I imagine it (1999), Giant Empty (2001), just two dancers (2003), CALIFORNIA (2003), Prone (2005), Becky, Jodi, and John (2007) and Misuse liable to prosecution (2007).
  • Christopher Gattelli is an American choreographer, performer and theatre director.
  • Terence Lewis
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    Terence Lewis (born 10 April 1975) is an Indian dancer and choreographer, specializing in contemporary dance. He is known as a choreographer and judge in reality dance series Dance India Dance season 1, 2 & 3 (2009โ€“2012) He runs his 'Terence Lewis Contemporary Dance Company' in Mumbai, holds dance workshops both in India and abroad. He has choreographed Bollywood films like, Lagaan (2001), Jhankaar Beats (2003) and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013), apart from musicals, stage shows, ads, music videos and national and international dance competitions, as well as starring in a music video for DJ Hot Remix Vol.3 called Badan Pe Sitare (Remix of old song by Harry Anand) He was recently a judge of Nach Baliye 5, along with actress Shilpa Shetty and film director Sajid Khan. And currently seen judging Nach Baliye Shriman v/s Shrimati along with actress and Nach Baliye 5 judge Shilpa Shetty and film director and choreographer Farah Khan. Terence Lewis also got Staar Parivaar Award for Favourite Judge. He also choreographed Disney India's first theatre production Beauty and the Beast.
  • Guruh Sukarno Putra

  • Kevin Tancharoen

    Kevin Harwick Tancharoen (born April 23, 1984) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, dancer, and choreographer. On September 29, 2011, New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. announced that Tancharoen would be helming a big-screen adaptation of Mortal Kombat after he created the successful web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy, although he dropped out of the project in 2013.
  • Robert Longbottom (born March 1957) is a New York City-based director, choreographer and director, primarily for theatre and opera.
  • Benjamin Harkarvy (16 December 1930 in New York City โ€“ 30 March 2002 in New York City) was an American dance teacher, choreographer, and artistic director. He earned an international reputation for his eclectic approach to dance education (particularly seen in his directorship of the Juilliard School Dance Division), as well as through his leadership of a number of prominent dance companies. Harkarvy began to study dance at the age of thirteen, already focused on the goal of teaching. Among his principal teachers were two highly regarded Russian expatriates: Edward Caton and Elizabeth Anderson-Ivantzova. Harkarvy studied primarily at the School of American Ballet. He had only a brief performing career, making his debut with the Brooklyn Lyric Opera at the age of eighteen and appearing in summer stock productions. From 1951 to 1955, he taught at Michel Fokine's school in New York City, and, in 1955, he opened his own school. Harkarvy's first post with a dance company came in 1957 with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The following year he was named ballet master of the Dutch National Ballet. Unhappy over problems with that company, he and a number of the dancers broke away and formed Nederlands Dans Theater in 1959. Harkarvy and Hans van Manen co-directed this new company, which combined ballet and modern dance in its repertory, for a decade. In 1969, Harkarvy became co-director, with Lawrence Rhodes, of the Harkness Ballet, which was disbanded the following year. He then returned to the Dutch National Ballet for a year, but, from 1972 to 1982, he was affiliated with the Pennsylvania Ballet. For Pennsylvania Ballet he taught daily and re-staged several of his well-known ballets-Madrigalesco, Recital for Cello and 8 Dancers, Grand Pas Espagnol plus created several new works including Quartet, Time Passed Summer, Continuum, Four Men Waiting, From Gentle Circles, Signatures and Poems of Love and the Seasons. He also brought in choreographers including Hans van Manen, Charles Czarny, Margo Sappington, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Rodney Griffin, Choo San Goh, to create works for the company. During this period, Harkarvy helped to raise the profile of the Philadelphia-based troupe, but he left in 1982 after the company began to experience severe financial difficulties. He subsequently held a variety of teaching positions before joining the Juilliard faculty in 1990. As director of the Juilliard's Dance Division from 1992, Harkarvy expanded existing programs and created innovative new ones, remaining with the school until the time of his death.
  • Dan Knechtges () is a director and choreographer, for musicals, opera, television, film and music videos. He is Artistic Director of Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, Texas.