Stephan Laurent's

Home Page

Welcome to my home page !

am Professor of Dance at the Department of Dance of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. From 1988 to 2003 I was also its Chairman, and Artistic Director of the Butler Ballet .

he invitation to join the Butler dance faculty came in the summer of 1988 after six years as the artistic director of the Des Moines Ballet (now Ballet Iowa), for which I produced and choreographed a number of classical and contemporary works. One of the higlights of my tenure there was receiving the 1986 Iowa Outstanding Artistic Achievement Award for my production of Cinderella , which was broadcast by the Iowa Public Television Network and received its Indiana premiere by the Butler Ballet in 1991.

About me...

I am originally Swiss (from Lausanne, Switzerland), having emigrated to the US in 1977.

I am a former ballet dancer, now teacher/choreographer. I love classical music of all periods, opera, and of course BALLET. :-)

am married to soprano Ellen Denham, and have three children of my prior marriage: Chris (also a dancer), now a company member of the Richmond Ballet in Richmond, VA; Dan, who recently graduated from the Political Science Department at Butler; and Emma, age 17, who plays the guitar and is turning to be quite a champion horseback rider.
We live in a beautiful home in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Would you like to see a few pictures of us?

Why not visit the photo album which Ellen & I recently compiled ?

Or, if you'd like, you could hear Ellen's beautiful voice in a splendid example of a bel canto aria by Bellini (requires LiveAudio, which usually comes bundled up with Netscape, or other audio plug-in).

Some of my works...

ome of my other contributions to the Butler Ballet, Des Moines Ballet, Scapino Ballet of Amsterdam, and Ballet de la Jeunesse romande have been:

[blue button] The Willow Maiden, an original contemporary full-length ballet in four acts, with an original libretto by Ellen Denham and a score by Butler composer Frank Felice. This marked my culminating contribution to the Butler Ballet in April 2003. The production was broadcast by Butler's Public Television station WTBU in July 2003.

[blue button] Death and the Maiden (Schubert), a collaboration with my wife, soprano Ellen Denham. This work was re-staged in Hong Kong in2003 for the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

[blue button] Journey Into Elsewhere (Salzedo)

[blue button] The Rite of Spring (Stravinsky) Photo by Roberta Wong

[blue button] Goethe Lieder (Schubert), a collaboration with my wife, soprano Ellen Denham .

[blue button] Coppelia , full-length ballet (Delibes). 1984 production broadcast live by the Iowa Public Television Network; 1996 production broadcast in Indiana by WTBU-TV/Channel 69.

[blue button] Afternoon of a Faun (Debussy), in collaboration with my Butler colleague Cynthia Pratt, for the 1997 Homage to Diaghilev production by the Butler Ballet.

[blue button] Songs of Ophelia (Shostakovich)

[blue button] Ballade (Chopin)

[blue button] Je T'aime... Tendrement (Debussy)

[blue button] Lenny - A Tribute to Leonard Bernstein

[blue button] Le Jardin Feerique (Debussy>.

[blue button] The Planets: A Child's Space Fantasy (Holst)

In addition, I have choreographed and staged substantial portions of the Butler Ballet's full-length classical productions, such as Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker.

SOON TO COME: video excerpts of some of these works. Come back and visit!

emigrated to the United States from my native Switzerland in 1973 after a professional career with a number of European companies:

[red button] Ballet Royal de Wallonie (Belgium)

[red button] Scapino Ballet (then located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

[red button] Ballett des Staatstheaters Braunschweig (Braunschweig, Germany)

[red button] Freiburg Ballett (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany)

[red button] Bayreuther Festspiele (under John Neumeier)

The Festpielhaus in Bayreuth, the high point of my career

n 1976 I served as a coach for the Swiss team at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria.

y Alma Mater is Southern Methodist University

n addition to my responsibilities as chairman of the Department of Dance and artistic director of the Butler Ballet , I teach Ballet Technique, Choreography, Theory and Philosophy, and Masterworks of Dance.

My work as a consultant, accreditator, and adjudicator for NASD (the National Association of Schools of Dance and for HKCAA (the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation) has taken me to many states in the U.S. and abroad. I am a firm believer in the value of student and faculty exchanges and have also worked tirelessly to that end.

For a list of some of my favorite and really cool links check out the homepage of the Butler University Department of Dance!

I would love to hear from you... :-)

Send mail to

laurent@butler.edu

Last updated: 8/18/2003

There have been

visitors since 1/1/1996.