The Nouveaux Ballets Russes
The Nouveaux Ballets Russes (NBR) is a new international ballet company co-founded by the New Generation Foundation and Artistic Director Xander Parish OBE, bringing together outstanding dancers and multidisciplinary creatives of the highest calibre in pursuit of artistic excellence that transcends boundaries. The company includes artists from around the world, including Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. Alongside its productions, the company is committed to the future of ballet by creating professional opportunities for young dancers and providing a pathway from leading international dance schools into the profession.
ABOUT THE NAME
The Nouveaux Ballets Russes (NBR) draw inspiration from the multidisciplinary spirit of the Ballets Russes, launched in Paris in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev. The Ballets Russes was a cultural phenomenon that revolutionised the arts, bringing together legendary dancers and choreographers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Léonide Massine and George Balanchine with some of the most important creative figures of the age, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel. These groundbreaking collaborations broke down boundaries, transformed the expressive possibilities of ballet and left a lasting mark on twentieth-century culture.
The NBR seek to carry that genius into a new era, reinterpreting the classical repertoire through bold and distinctive new productions. Dance, music, visual art, fashion and technology will be brought together at the highest level as a single creative force for a new generation.
RENAISSANCE
At the heart of this initiative is the conviction that art remains a perennial force of renewal. Florence, whose Renaissance courts contributed to the birth of ballet, provides a natural home for that spirit. Just as Paris offered the first Ballets Russes a creative refuge a century ago, Florence will become the birthplace of their renaissance with the creation of the Nouveaux Ballets Russes.
XANDER PARISH OBE
Artistic Director and Co-Founder of NBR
Alexander Parish — known as Xander — was born in 1986 in Beverley, East Yorkshire. He began his ballet training at the age of eight in Hull, attending classes alongside his sister Demelza. At 11, he moved to London to join the Royal Ballet School at White Lodge, graduating from the Royal Ballet Upper School with honours in 2005.
In 2010, at the personal invitation of Artistic Director Yuri Fateev, Xander made history as the first British dancer to join the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. He rose through the ranks to become a Principal Dancer in July 2017, a promotion announced after the opening night of Swan Lake during the Mariinsky Ballet’s London season at the Royal Opera House.
In September 2022, Xander was appointed Artistic Director of Reunited in Dance, a company dedicated to supporting displaced dancers who formerly worked with Russian ballet companies before the invasion of Ukraine. Under his direction, the company appeared at prestigious venues internationally, including the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County, Festival Napa Valley, and the Teatro della Pergola in Florence as part of the New Generation Festival.
