George de la Peña, Associate Professor, began his career with American Ballet Theatre after graduating from George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet. He worked with many choreographers including George Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Martha Clarke, Alonzo King, Kenneth MacMillan, Mark Morris, Rudolf Nureyev, Dwight Rhoden, Jerome Robbins, AntonyTudor, Twyla Tharp, Glen Tetley, Doug Varone, Dan Wagoner, and many others. In 1978 he was chosen to portray Vaslav Nijinsky in the Paramount Pictures/ Herbert Ross film NIJINSKY. He followed that with numerous other projects for film and television as an actor where he worked with distinguished artists such as Alan Bates, Blake Edwards, Marsha Norman, Richard Levinson, Stanley Donen, John Turturro, Kathy Bates, Elizabeth McGovern, and most recently, Patrick Swayze. Broadway musicals were also in his repertoire: Woman of the Year with Lauren Bacall and Raquel Welch, the Tony Award winning revival of On Your Toes with Natalia Makarova, and the highly acclaimed Lincoln Center Theater production of Graciela Daniele’s musical theater adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story Chronicle of a Death, Foretold. (Drama League Award) George is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Laboratory.