Ballet Rising Founder
Casey Herd is a former ballet dancer born in Salt Lake City, USA.
He began his ballet training at The School for Ballet West and later graduated from The Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D.C. During his time there, he was a finalist at the Paris International Ballet Competition.
Casey Herd started his professional career by performing with American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. He later joined Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle and quickly rose to rank of principal dancer. In 2008, he joined the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam as a principal dancer after being a guest artist the previous season.
Throughout his career, Casey Herd was a guest principal with many world-renowned ballet companies such as San Francisco Ballet, English National Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Lithuanian National Ballet, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and more. He also starred alongside other world-famous dancers in many prestigious international ballet galas.
Casey Herd had the honor of working with highly recognized choreographers, including Wayne McGregor, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, John Neumeier, Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, Justin Peck, Lar Lubovitch, and many others. He also danced at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. with the Washington Opera under the direction of Placido Domingo and performed at the coronation of King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands in Amsterdam. He also starred in the Canta Ballet, a choreography with cars set in an open arena where Casey Herd danced a pas de deux with a car. During his long career as a dancer, Casey Herd worked on many projects involving photoshoots, short films, art projects, fashion projects, and classical concerts.
In 2018, Casey Herd retired from dancing and began a new career as an international guest teacher and competition judge. He has worked with organizations across Europe, Africa, Latin America, USA, and India. This helped inspire him together with Laura Rosillo Ramirez to found Ballet Rising, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands that addresses a lack of connectivity at the very edges of the global ballet community, with the aim of expanding opportunities and collaboration.
Directing Ballet Rising combines his lifelong passion for art, history, social causes, and travel, and is a means of giving back to the art form that gave him so much. In 2022, as part of one of Ballet Rising’s media projects, Casey Herd co-directed and produced the documentary film Esperança, leading to many more creative adventures.