Christopher Bruce

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Christopher Bruce is a British choreographer. He trained at the Ballet Rambert School and joined Ballet Rambert in 1963. There he was remembered particularly for his performances in Glen Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire and Cruel Garden (which he created with Lindsay Kemp and in which he performed the central rôle of the Poet).

Bruce is recognised as the last major choreographer to have been nurtured by Marie Rambert. In addition to performing and choreographing, he was Associate Director of Ballet Rambert from 1975 to 1979, and in 1980 became the Company’s Associate Choreographer. He has created numerous works for Rambert and for Nederlands Dans Theater, Houston Ballet and Cullberg Ballet and has had a long-term association with the English National Ballet and the Houston Ballet. In 2005 he created a new work for the spring season at the Royal Ballet and a further new work for the Rambert autumn season.

Some of his creations include Cruel Garden, Ghost Dances (set to music from the Andes), Sergeant Early's Dream, Swansong, Moonshine and Rooster (performed to music by the Rolling Stones). Four Scenes was commissioned in 1998 by Sadler’s Wells Theatre to celebrate the opening of the newly rebuilt theatre in London.

He has received many awards and was only the second individual in the dance world to receive a second Evening Standard Award for ‘Outstanding Artistic Achievement’ in 1997. He was awarded a CBE in 1998, in 2000 was made an Honorary Doctor of Art by De Montfort University and in 2001 was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Exeter.