From Joffrey Ballet to DanceAspen

Geoff Hanson, Aspen Daily February 17, 2026

Meredith Harrill and Myles Tracy rehearse “The Mating Dance” as guest choreographer Houston Thomas looks on. The dance is a reinterpretation of the pas de deux from “Swan Lake,” one of the most iconic ballets ever.

If you judge a person or organization by the company they keep, then DanceAspen exists in a rarified ether. For their upcoming performance at the Wheeler Opera House, “re:imagine,” the members of the company will dance under the artistic direction of some of the top up-and-coming choreographers working today.

All three of the guest choreographers — Emile Leriche, Shane Urton and Houston Thomas — have spent the last several years working in Europe. Both Leriche and Thomas are winners of the Princess Grace Award, which was created in 1982 by Prince Rainier III of Monaco in memory of his wife Princess Grace (the Academy Award-winning actress Grace Kelly). 

The awards are given in the disciplines of film, theater and dance and are considered among the most prestigious in their respective fields. Leriche won her Princess Grace Award in 2015 and Thomas received his in 2025. 

Visions of choreography

What is unusual about Thomas is that his interest in choreography dates back to his earliest days as a dancer. Many choreographers only begin to seriously consider the discipline at the end of their professional dancing careers as they contemplate their next chapter.

Thomas remembers thinking about choreography from the very start. 

“My mother took me to go see the Joffrey Ballet perform ‘The Nutcracker’ in downtown Chicago,” Thomas recalled in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. “This was the first moment that I saw a professional ballet company, and in this moment, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh, I would love to dance something like this, but I would also love to create something like this.’ That was the very first thought that I had about creating choreography.”

As a boy, he started experimenting with creating dances at home. His parents built him a small studio space with mirrors and a barre, where he practiced and choreographed informal performances for family gatherings. 

Thomas, who grew up in Chicago, took classes through Joffrey Ballet’s Community Engagement Program. He remembers taking classes in a large gymnasium with basketballs occasionally straying into the dance area. When Joffrey opened its own dedicated school, The Grainger Academy of the Joffrey Ballet in 2010, Thomas joined. He later attended the Chicago High School for the Arts before moving at the age of 16 to New York City to study at the School of American Ballet.

After two years in New York, the director of the Semperoper Ballet in Dresden, Germany, offered Thomas a contract. He moved quickly to second soloist roles in the company. His performance in Justin Peck’s “Heatscape” earned him a “Best Male Performance” nomination at the 2018 Dance Europe Critic Choice Awards.

That same year, Thomas’ first professional choreographic work, “Moonlit Variant,” premiered in Dresden and was well received. He then won a Young Emergent Choreographers Contest in Biarritz, France. That success encouraged him to pursue choreography more seriously. 

In 2023, at age 28, Thomas chose to step away from performing, despite still being at his peak physically, to return to the United States and pursue choreography full-time. Now based in New York City, he continues to dance in class but no longer performs professionally. 

Since returning to the United States, Thomas has choreographed works for Ailey II, ABT Studio Company, Washington Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Complexions, the Juilliard School, and is currently working at USC in Los Angeles. Thomas has taught choreography at Steps on Broadway, The Juilliard School, Ailey 2, and The International City School of Ballet.

Houston Thomas is one of the guest choreographers for DanceAspen’s winter performance “re:imagine” that will be performed Saturday and Sunday at the Wheeler Opera House. Thomas was recently awarded a prestigious Princess Grace Award.

Reconnecting with a prodigy

Winton first met Thomas almost 20 years ago when she was a young dancer with the Joffrey Ballet and Thomas was an 8-year-old in the youth program. The small boy made a huge impression.

“I taught some workshops with Houston and sometimes Joffrey had kids in the shows where they performed with the company and Houston always really stood out,” Winton said. “I’m always looking for the best young choreographers and a few years ago a colleague mentioned that Houston was taking the ballet world by storm so I reached out to him and we reconnected. We’ve been trying to find a time to collaborate; he’s very much in demand, and we were able to get him here for this performance.”

In his latest work, “The Mating Dance,” Thomas deconstructs perhaps the most iconic ballet of all time, the pas de deux from “Swan Lake.” Rather than retelling the traditional narrative of the prince and the swan, Thomas strips away the human storyline to focus on the ritual behavior of the swans themselves. Inspired in part by nature documentaries, the piece includes narration reminiscent of a David Attenborough-style introduction. 

“The Mating Dance” will be performed by DanceAspen’s Meredith Harrill and Myles Tracy on Saturday and Nicole Bui and Matthew Gilmore on Sunday. 

Transformation through dance 

Winton was so inspired by Thomas’ concept of reinvention that she used the concept of reimagining and reinvention as a theme for the entire production.

“All four pieces that will be performed this weekend involve a major fundamental change of some sort,” Winton said. “In addition to Houston subverting the narrative of the White Swan, Shane Urton’s piece ‘Overtime’ is based on a score that's completely reinvented. Emile Leriche’s piece ‘Of Field’ is based on a poem that is adjusted and re-imagined and our own Jonah Delgado’s piece ‘Arbitrary Relevance’ is based on a philosophical idea that was transmitted into a dance.”

Winton said that “re:imagine” marks another hallmark moment for the fledgling company, now in its fifth year. 

“For the first time in our history, every ballet performed will be a world premiere so that’s very exciting,” Winton said. “I hope people just experience the performances and I hope it inspires the viewers to come see more dance and go see things that are outside of their normal day-to-day lives. I hope it moves people. I think that’s what artists are supposed to do.”

Thomas said he hopes “The Mating Dance” gives the audience a new perspective on the possibilities of ballet. 

“Ballet is a very old art form. It goes back centuries,” Thomas said. “‘Swan Lake’ is such an iconic and very important work in ballet, I hope that audiences are able to enjoy this new perspective that I’m trying to put on it with ‘The Mating Dance’ and really be open to these new ideas, and just accept them and go on the journey. I hope that they see my love for dance and my love for choreography through this work.”