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Stanton Welch had no interest in a career in dance. Now artistic director of the Houston Ballet, and one of the most sought-after choreographers of his generation, his parents Garth Welch and Marilyn Jones were esteemed dancers and artistic directors of Australian companies. The surprisingly soft-spoken 37-year-old tells me, “When you grow up backstage, you see how hard it is. Dancing is not this easy, wondrous thing you see from the audience.”

Welch told the New York Times in 2001, “To my brother and me, dance was this job that made our parents cry. Backstage, ballet is sport. It’s not the image you get from the audience perspective, so dance was the furthest thing from either of our minds. It really looked like a miserable time.”

However, at the age of 16, Welch attended a ballet performance, not as the son of the artistic director, but as an audience member, and fell in love with the beauty and artistry of dance. “My mother had been a dancer and an artistic director, then she stopped for a period, and that’s really when I started watching. I guess we had to get away from it to fall in love with it… I say that because my brother started a few years after me and is now a principal dancer with Australia Ballet.”

Welch began his training in 1986 at the relatively late age of 17, winning a scholarship to San Francisco Ballet School. He says, “I felt at home there. I left Australia with the idea of going to school in New York City, but I felt more comfortable [in San Francisco] than I did in New York, and it was closer to Australia.” Three years later, he was invited to become a member of the Australia Ballet, where he rose to the rank of leading soloist. It quickly became apparent, however, that Welch’s passion would be in the choreographic arena.

About his short but successful performing career, Welch says, “Working in ballet is a lot like being a film actor—you have a hot spell, and that catapults your career to what it will be. It wasn’t deliberate, but the performance thing just didn’t kick in for me. I love both [dancing and choreographing], and it was something I needed to do, but the choreography aspect just sort of took over. I still see the occasional ballet I’d love to perform, but I’m a shyer person, and with choreography, you get to feel the ballet and experience it, but just not in front of people. My fulfillment comes from that.”

In 1990, Welch received his first choreographic commission from Australia Ballet, and in 1995 he was appointed to the position of Resident Choreographer. Over the next few years Welch would begin a swift ascent to the top of the choreographic world, receiving numerous commissions to create ballets for some of the world’s most prestigious companies, including San Francisco Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Moscow Dance Theatre.

In 1999, he choreographed his first piece, Indigo, for the Houston Ballet, and he was instantly reminded of home. “Of all the companies I’d worked with, Houston reminded me most of Australia Ballet. It was kind of a ‘Choreographer’s Eden.’ There is plenty of rehearsal time and space, a great stage, and the dancers have a wonderful life. It has a very settled, comfortable feel. The dancers can work and then go home, and have a good life. They get a lot more bang for their buck than they do in a place like New York City.”

When Houston Ballet Artistic Director Ben Stevenson, who had been at the helm of the company for nearly 25 years, announced his retirement in 2002, Welch applied for the job. He says, “Ben was really a creator and Houston audiences seemed drawn to new works, which is very appealing to a choreographer.” In 2003, at the age of only 32—and with virtually no experience in running a company of any size, much less one with a $17 million budget—Welch was named artistic director of Houston Ballet, America’s fourth largest ballet company. Welch says, “I kept getting through different stages of the interview process and I was as surprised as anyone!”

Although the company’s repertoire includes a couple of full-length story ballets each season, since his appointment, Welch has overseen a shift in programming at Houston Ballet, with a much greater focus on new works. With several highly successful seasons under his belt, Welch now considers the company his artistic home, saying, “Of course I had a fear of following someone who had been there such a long time, and financially I knew it would be somewhat challenging to produce a huge new repertoire with not much of an increased budget. But our audiences are so enthused by new work, the transition has been easy. I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, to some degree we feel isolated from a lot of America, not unlike in Australia. You sort of get used to being undervalued, but that’s a place where I feel comfortable. I like being the underdog, because you have something to work toward.”

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