Benjamin Millepied

Benjamin Millepied is a French dancer and choreographer, who has lived and worked in the United States after joining the New York City Ballet in 1995, where he became a soloist in 1998 and a principal in 2002. He has also created choreography for the company, and choreographed pieces for other major companies. He retired from NYCB in 2011.

He initiated the LA Dance Project, leading it from 2011 to 2014. He was Director of Dance at the Paris Opera Ballet from October 2014 and resigned in 2016. He is known for his work in the movie Black Swan (2010), which he choreographed, and in which he starred as a dancer.

Millepied met actress Natalie Portman on the set of Black Swan in early 2009 and reportedly left his live-in girlfriend at the time, Isabella Boylston, a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, to begin a relationship with the actress. Millepied and Portman wed in a Jewish ceremony held in Big Sur, California on 4 August 2012. The family lived in Paris for a time, after Millepied accepted the position of director of dance with the Paris Opera Ballet. They have two children: a son Aleph (b. 2011) and a daughter Amalia (b. 2017). In January 2014, Millepied said he was in the process of converting to Judaism (his wife’s faith). In 2016, the family moved from Paris to Los Angeles.

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