About
Bruce McCormick is a choreographer, educator, scholar and former soloist dancer whose work explores storytelling through contemporary ballet. Feeling both personal and universal, his choreography investigates what it means to be a human being alive today in all of its beauty and strife. His work draws from his international performing career spanning over two decades that includes Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Bavarian State Ballet and the Bern Ballet, where he also served as ballet master. Resulting from his contemporary dance company leadership experience as Assistant Artistic Director of North Netherlands Dance and Rehearsal Director with Ballet BC, his approach to dancemaking is centered around the understanding that humane and rigorous rehearsal spaces are crucial to the delivery of honest and boundary-pushing performances.
McCormick’s vast repertory as a performer including the geometry and musicality of George Balanchine, systemic investigation and counterpoint of William Forsythe, storytelling of Mats Ek, hybridity of Jiří Kylián, physicality of Ohad Naharin, experimentation of Stijn Celis and theatricality of Susan Marshall has directly informed his choreographic aesthetic. Additionally, working under contemporary dance visionary Emily Molnar as her rehearsal director and renown ballet choreographer Cathy Marston as her ballet master, along with assisting leading contemporary choreographers Medhi Walerski, Andrea Miller, and Roy Assaf has given him insight into the variety of ways dance can be approached, from all of which he draws inspiration.
As a maker, McCormick has created for stage, film and opera and has also made site-specific work for both professionals and pre-professionals. What links his work is his belief in dance’s intrinsic value and his curiosity to find new ways to communicate both contemporary and timeless ideas. Past choreographic commissions include Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, Korea National Opera, Stadttheater Bern, ARC Dance, Ballet California and Cornish College of the Arts, among others. His work has also been presented at various festivals including DUMBO Dance Festival (NYC), ITS Festival (Amsterdam), International Festival of Contemporary Dance of Mexico City, Seattle International Dance Festival, Choreographer Collection Los Angeles and Queer Mvmnt Fest (San Diego). As a sought-after educator, he has taught masterclasses for several companies including BalletX, Gibney Company, Malpaso Dance Company, National Dance Company of Wales, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Whim W’Him. He has presented for the National Dance Education Organization and CORPS de Ballet International, and his scholarship on leadership has been published by The International Journal of Arts Theory and History.
McCormick earned his BFA from The Juilliard School under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy and his MFA from the University of Washington, where he also worked as Assistant Professor of Dance. He joined the faculty at the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance in 2018 where he serves as Associate Professor of Practice teaching ballet, partnering and Senior Seminar, while also leading the Career Services team.
