David Dawson

Born in London in 1972, he trained at the Rona Hart School of Dance, the Arts Educational School and The Royal Ballet School. He won the Prix de Lausanne in 1991 and danced with Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt before turning to choreography in 2002. From 2004 to 2012 he was resident choreographer for Dutch National Ballet, Semperoper Ballett and the Royal Ballet of Flanders; he has been an associate artist of Dutch National Ballet since 2015, and in 2025 became resident choreographer of The National Ballet of Canada.

His full-length Giselle had its world premiere with Semperoper Ballett on 9 March 2008. David Coleman arranged and re-orchestrated Adolphe Adam’s score for that production, a credit listed among his major ballet works for Dresden.