Extremely Close

Alejandro Cerrudo was born in Madrid, Spain. His professional career includes work with Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC). Cerrudo became HSDC’s first-ever resident choreographer in 2008 and held that position until 2018.

Cerrudo’s body of work has been performed by over 20 professional dance companies around the world. Honors include an award from the Boomerang Fund for Artists (2011) and the Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work from the Prince Charitable Trusts (2012) for his acclaimed, first evening-length work, One Thousand Pieces. In 2014 he was awarded the USA Donnelley Fellowship by United States Artists. Also, Cerrudo was one of four choreographers invited by New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan to create and perform original duets for RestlessCreatures. In 2017 Cerrudo was invited by Daniil Simkin to choreograph a site-specific performance for the Guggenheim Rotunda, a Works & Process Rotunda Project commission, featuring Daniil Simkin and original costumes by Dior. Cerrudo’s Sleeping Beauty, created with Ballet Theater Basel in 2016, was nominated as “Production of the Year” in Switzerland in the “Tanz, Jahrbuch 2016” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

In 2020 Cerrudo was appointed Pacific Northwest Ballet’s resident choreographer, with that, he became the first artist in the company’s history to have the honor of holding that title. Independently, he directed and choreographed his show, “It Starts Now,” which premiered in 2021 at The Joyce Theater in New York. In 2022, Cerrudo was appointed artistic director of Charlotte Ballet.

Headshot by THE GINGERB3ARDMEN

JUSTIN PECK is a two-time Tony Award winning choreographer, director, filmmaker, and dancer based in New York City. He is currently the acting Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor of New York City Ballet.  Peck has created and developed over 50 dance and theater works for stages around the world, including work for Broadway, the Palais Garnier, the Sydney Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Lincoln Center.  He has created extensively for film, most notably choreographing Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (2021).  In 2024, Peck directed and choreographed the original Broadway musical Illinoise.  In 2025, Peck co-choreographed the Broadway musical Buena Vista Social Club in collaboration with Patricia Delgado.  Peck’s honors include the Tony Award for Best Choreography for Carousel (2018) and Illinoise (2024), the National Arts Award (2018), the Golden Plate Honor from the Academy of Achievement (2019), the Bessie Award for Rodeo (2015), and the World Choreography Award for the film West Side Story (2021).

Headshot by Ryan Pfluger

Amy Seiwert enjoyed a nineteen-year performing career dancing with Smuin, Los Angeles Chamber, and Sacramento Ballets. As a dancer with Smuin, she became involved with the “Protégé Program,” where Michael Smuin was her mentor. She retired as a dancer from Smuin in 2008. That same year, Celia Fushille named her Choreographer in Residence, a position she held for a decade. She is the recipient of numerous choreographic awards, including a “Goldie” award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2010, which described Seiwert as the Bay Area’s most original dance thinker, “taking what some consider a dead language and using it with a 21st-century lingo to tell us something about who we are.” 

In 2017 Seiwert’s first full-evening work, “Wandering,” set to Schubert’s Winterreise, was commissioned by the Joyce Theater in New York. The NEA and Kennedy Center have also supported Seiwert’s works. A former Artist in Residence at ODC Theater, she has also served on the Artist Faculty for Jacob’s Pillow’s Contemporary Ballet program. Her creations are in the repertory of Smuin, ODC/Dance, BalletX, Ballet Austin, and AXIS Dance, as well as Washington, Atlanta, Oakland, Kansas City, Colorado, Louisville, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, American Repertory, and Milwaukee Ballets.