Benjamin Millepied Celebrity

Birth Name : Benjamin L. Millepied

Date of Birth : 15 June 1977, Bordeaux, France

Height : 5' 10" (1.78 m)

Occupation : Dancer

Benjamin Millepied was born June 10, 1977 in Bordeaux, France and at age 8 began training for dance, under the instruction of his mother, a former ballerina. When Millepied turned 13, he began studying at the revered Conservatoire National in Lyon.

In the summer of 1992, Millepied made his first appearance in New York City, for a summer program at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet. The following year, he became a full-time student at the school, having received the “Bourse Lavoisier,” a scholarship award from the French Ministry of Culture.

In the 1994 School of American Ballet Spring Workshop, Millepied originated a principal role in Jerome Robbins’ 2 & 3 Part Inventions set to music by J.S Bach. That same year, he was awarded the “Prix de Lausanne.” In his last year at SAB, Millepied received the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise and was invited to become a member of New York City Ballet. In the Spring of 2001, he was promoted to the rank of Principal Dancer. In 2004 and 2005, Millepied directed the Morriss Center Dance Workshop in Bridgehampton, New York. From 2006 to 2007, he was choreographer-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York. In 2007, Millepied received the United States Artists Wynn Fellowship. In 2010, he was made Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.

Millepied lives with his girlfriend, Danish-born NYCB ballerina Saskia Beskow, in New York's trendy East Village neighborhood. He could not imagine living anywhere other than New York, he asserted in the interview with Vogue. "This is the place where Balanchine and Jerry made their ballets," he told Kourlas. "This is the place where there are people who really get the kind of work that I believe in."