Stephen Pier is an internationally respected performer, teaching artist, choreographer, and director. He performed extensively with the Royal Danish Ballet, the Hamburg Ballet, the José Limón Company and as a guest artist throughout the world. His repertoire extends from Petipa, Bournonville, Balanchine, Cranko, Kylian, Limón, and Neumeier to an array of contemporary dance makers, earning critical acclaim as, “a dancer of tremendous taste and insight”, “highly defined, a tour de force”, and “one of the most gifted dancers on the modern dance scene today.”

Mr Pier became internationally known as a teacher and coach of both Limón work and Ballet. He taught for the Royal Danish Ballet’s company and school while serving as ballet master and dancer from 1990 -1996 and was a full-time faculty member of the Juilliard School from 1996-2010. There he helped establish and direct the innovative Mentoring Program. Pier was invited to teach for the Alvin Ailey School, Martha Graham Center, Regional Dance America, New York International Ballet Competition and for many notable companies in Europe, America and Asia including Company Wayne McGregor, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Atlanta Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Introdans, Scapino Ballet, Philadanco and New National Theater Tokyo. His students have danced in companies around the world including, The Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Forsythe Company, Netherlands Dance Theater, Martha Graham Company, Lar Lubovitch, José Limón Dance Co., Mark Morris Dance Group, Doug Varone Dancers, Cullberg Ballet, Cedar Lake Ensemble, Alvin Ailey and Bat Sheva.

In 2004 Mr. Pier began PierGroupDance to explore and collaborate with dancers and artists in various art forms. He has created over 75 works for the concert stage, opera, theater, and film. His work has been presented by The Hamburg Ballet (Ger.); Royal Danish Ballet, Theater, and Opera; Bat-Dor (Israel); The New National Theater (Japan); the Juilliard Dance Ensemble; The Di Capo Opera Company (NYC); and the Dance on Film Festival at Lincoln Center. In 1998 he was selected to be part of Jacob’s Pillow Choreographers Project. He co-founded and directed the choreographer’s workshop, “Danses”, at the Royal Danish Ballet 1990-1996.

Stephen was the Artistic Director of Juilliard’s innovative Mentoring Program from 2007 – 2010 and in September 2008 he began a 3-year tenure as director of Visions and Voices: Altria/ABT Women’s Choreography Project at American Ballet Theater. In October of 2009, Mr. Pier was recruited for the position of Artistic Director of the Dance Division at The Hartt School, University of Hartford solidifying the program as a pre-eminent conservatory of Dance. Under his leadership, the program has appeared several times at the Joyce Theater in NYC, The Kennedy Center, and at Jacob’s Pillow. An ongoing stream of guest artists such as Wendy Whelan, Yuriko, Virginia Johnson, Desmond Richardson, NDT2, Taylor 2, Misty Copeland, Bryan Arias, and Claudia Schreier, work extensively with the students. Graduates from Hartt Dance are currently performing with Paul Taylor, José Limón, Martha Graham, Whim W’him, Broadway, Charlotte Ballet 2, directing their own companies, teaching throughout the nation, and sharing the influence of the art of dance with the world.  

Mr Pier is featured in the recently released book, Movement at the Stillpoint, an Ode to Dance (https://movementatthestillpoint.com/) by Mark Mann.