Photo by Jonathan Thorpe

American arts leader and acclaimed choreographer Edwaard Liang is the Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet. Liang is one of only four people to have led the organization and the first person of color. He is also the first Asian American to lead a major American ballet company.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan and raised in Marin County, California, Liang began his dance training at age five with Marin Ballet. After studying at the School of American Ballet, he joined New York City Ballet in 1993. That same year, he was a medal winner at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition and won the Mae L. Wien Award. By 1998, he was promoted to soloist. In 2001, Liang joined the Tony Award-winning Broadway cast of Fosse. His performance in Fosse was later televised nationally on PBS’s Great Performances series (“Dance in America–From Broadway: Fosse”) and subsequently released on DVD. By 2002, Liang was invited by Jiri Kylian to become a member of the acclaimed Nederlands Dans Theater 1.

While dancing with NDT 1, Liang discovered his passion and love for choreography. Since establishing himself as a choreographer, his works have been performed by dance companies around the world including the Mariinsky Ballet, New York City Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, Shanghai Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Hubbard Street 2, Singapore Ballet, Dortmund Ballet, National Theatre in Beijing, and many others. In 2012, Liang was named the fifth Artistic Director of BalletMet and named Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet in 2023.

Liang was awarded first place in the 2006 National Choreographic Competition and was named “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine for choreography and was subsequently invited to be a part of the 2007 National Choreographers Initiative. Liang was also one of the winners of the Prince Prize Grant for Choreography and the Choo San Goh Award for Choreography. In 2008 and 2010, he was nominated for the Golden Mask Award in Russia for best new production and best choreographer.

In 2017, he received an Emmy Award for his short dance film Vaulted. In 2018, he created a new ballet with Roberto Bolle for the opening of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In addition to his artistic achievements, Liang was also featured in the New York City Ballet Workout book along with its accompanying video and Richard Corman’s book of photographs Glory.