Open House with Jamar Roberts

Jamar Roberts // Artist-In-Residence

Jamar Roberts returns to Vail this season as an Artist-In-Residence, after choreographing his first work for the Vail Dance Festival in 2021, and creating two additional new works for the 2023 Festival. Roberts is a prolific and highly in-demand choreographer who has made works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Ballet, Miami City Ballet, the Martha Graham Company, BalletX, The Juilliard School, Ailey 2, New York City Center’s Fall for Dance, and he also serves as a Creative Associate for The Juilliard School from 2023-2024. Roberts, a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School has danced for AAADT, Ailey II, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, won the 2016 “Bessie” award for outstanding performer, and has performed as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London and made multiple television performance appearances. In 2020, the March on Washington Film Festival invited Roberts to create a dance on film tribute to the Honorable John Lewis. Other highlights include Works and Process at the Guggenheim, where he created the acclaimed short work on the film Cooped and A Chronicle of a Pivot at a Point in Time, which premiered on film in 2021 and was restaged for a live performance world premiere in 2022. Roberts was a director’s fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts in the 2020-21 season and he has also made a short film for the LA Opera entitled The First Bluebird in the Morning. His first narrative ballet, Resurrection, premiered at San Francisco Ballet in January 2023.