Michael Shannon was trained on scholarships by legends of the Ballet Russe; Royal Ballet; School of American Ballet; National Ballet School of Canada; and Hungarian State Ballet Academy. At 16, he was offered a contract with the Royal Swedish Opera Ballet, and a scholarship to the Moscow Choreographic Institute Bolshoi Ballet Academy where he became their first American graduate since the Bolshoi’s founding in 1776.

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Shannon was a Principal Dancer for the Bolshoi Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet, Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet, Hungarian State Opera Ballet, and Kremlin Palace Ballet Threatre. He was honored by President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton, and he has performed for President and Mrs. Gorbachev, President Nazarbayev, and President and Mrs. Ford.

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Shannon is a National Endowment for the Arts awardee; two Laureate and Silver Medal winner of the International Ballet Competition in Paris, France and Budapest, Hungary. He was Director and Chief Choreographer of the Russian Imperial Theatre of Opera and Ballet under the Patronage of Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanov; co-Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer of Russiches Kammertheater in Berlin; and awarded Professor of Choreography from the Ukranian State Academy of Ballet in 1999 and YAGP Outstanding Choreographer in 2008.

 

Shannon has danced and premiered 45 of his ballets across 3 continents. He was Resident Choreographer for Configuration Dance Theatre in New York and awarded Artvoice Best Dance Company in 2008, 2009, and 2010. He also worked as Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer for the Royal Ballet School in Belgium under the Patronage of Queen Mathilde from 2010 to 2014.

 

Since 2014, Shannon has been a Master Teacher at Architanz in Tokyo and conducts pedagogic workshops throughout Japan. In 2015, he was commissioned to created and direct “Midnight in Paris” for performances by Vanemuine Ballet Theatre in Estonia throughout 2015 and 2016 and “Dui Dao” for the Beijing Dance Academy Bachelor Degree Program for performance throughout China from 2016 and 2020.

 

In 2017, Shannon organized a team of dance and fitness professionals to create an individualized training program for dancers to evaluate and increase overall body strength, identify and address any areas of muscular imbalance and weakness to aid in injury prevention, and to prepare the dancers both mentally and physically for today’s innovative, challenging, and increasingly diverse and demanding repertoire.

 

He represented the Bolshoi Ballet on radio and television during tours and was invited as a judge for international ballet competitions in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Canada, Ukraine, and Japan from 2011 to 2018. He has also produced and directed plays in the USA, Germany, and Russia and was awarded Best Play in 1995. Shannon is a registered IMDb film producer, director, screenplay actor and writer.

 

Shannon speaks five languages—English, Russian, German, Italian, Hungarian, and is working on Japanese.