Christopher Roman

Christopher Roman began his formal training and danced as an apprentice with The School of Cleveland Ballet continuing his training at The School of American Ballet in New York City. He was subsequently invited into the ranks of the Pacific Northwest Ballet and as a soloist and principal with Edward Villella's Miami City Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, de Montréal, The Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt and The Forsythe Company, performing a prolific and diverse array of important choreographic works, originating over forty roles and touring extensively worldwide. He has been a guest artist with Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Sasha Waltz and Guests in Berlin. Christopher was co-founder, choreographer and performer for the company 2+ with former Wooster Group video designer Philip Bussmann. William Forsythe’s Bessie Award winning »You Made Me a Monster« was created with Mr. Roman, and he is the 2009 recipient of Germany's highest theater honor Der Deutsche Theaterpreis DER FAUST for Best Performance: Dance in The Forsythe Company's, »I don't believe in outer space«. He is also featured in the Thierry De Mey  film of Forsythe's work, »One Flat Thing, reproduced«. As a ballet master, choreographic assistant and administrator Christopher has staged and assisted the works of William Forsythe internationally, been a teacher of improvisational techniques, a research collaborator for the Ohio State University project Synchronous Objects and the Score Manager and Education Coordinator for the Motion Bank initiative in association with The Forsythe Company. He was the curator and organizer for the MFA in Dance, European Study Program at Hollins University from 2011-2020. Since 2011 Christopher has been guest and adjunct faculty and choreographer in residence for Butler University, The Juilliard School, Hollins University, Princeton University, The Palucca Schule, Harvard University, The Goethe Institute worldwide, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Springboard Dance Montreal among others. Mr. Roman was one of the artists selected to be part of the final Solo Performance Commissioning Project with Deborah Hay for her work »Dynamic« and as one of the twenty artists to perform in Boris Charmatz’s curation of »20 Dancers for the XX Century« at MoMA. In September 2013, Christopher assumed the role of Associate Artistic Director of The Forsythe Company and was on the Board of Trustees for the Forsythe Foundation. In 2015, Christopher became the Artistic Director and Dance Artist with the DANCE ON Ensemble, based in Berlin. Together with the ensemble, he helped create 11 original works with Matteo Fargion, Rabih Mroué, William Forsythe, Kat Valastur, Deborah Hay, Ivo Dimchev, Johannes Wieland, Jan Martens and Ersan Mondtag and the Berliner Ensemble. In recent years he has toured a new evening created with William Forsythe for Sadler’s Wells entitled »A Quiet Evening of Dance« and collaborated with Deborah Hay as dancer and producer of her work Animals on the Beach which premiered at Tanz im August in Berlin as part of her “Re-Perspective”. In 2022 Christopher directed and co-choregraphed the world premiere of the opera »Mexico Aura« with the Neuköllner Oper at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. He was awarded his PhD from Roehampton University in London between the Departments of Dance and Drama, Theatre and Performance.