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Evan McKie

Evan McKie is a Canadian ballet dancer, writer and visual artist. He is a Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and a guest dancer with companies including the Paris Opera Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and Tokyo Ballet. The National Ballet of Canada's Artistic Director, Karen Kain, who is partly responsible for bringing McKie back to Canada, stated that McKie is one of the finest dancers of this generation. McKie continues to have very close ties with the Stuttgart Ballet, where he grew up (1999-2014 as a student and dancer). He is also a contributor and board member for American Dance Magazine and a frequent writer for Japanese Shinshokan Dance Magazine and FASHION magazine in Canada. He has a monthly column for the Japanese Sports and Dancewear brand, Chacott.McKie studied at Canada's National Ballet School, The Kirov Academy of Ballet and Germany's John Cranko School, where he was given his first professional job as a dancer by the Stuttgart Ballet's Artistic Director, Reid Anderson. Just before becoming professional however, McKie suffered a potentially career-ending ligament-injury which forced him to take time off and painfully reassess his reduced chances of being a Ballet dancer. After an intense period of rehabilitation, McKie was finally able to resume performing and took his place at the Stuttgart Ballet. Promotions to Soloist and Principal Dancer followed and in 2011, McKie was invited to be a guest dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet. The Financial Times called the performance (of John Cranko's Onegin) “the sensation of the season.” McKie received further critical acclaim when he was invited to be a guest at the Bolshoi Ballet in 2013 which led to further guest-engagements at the Paris Opera Ballet in both January and July of 2014. In Stuttgart, under the direction and mentorship of fellow Canadian Reid Anderson, McKie has enjoyed dancing the major roles in Classical Ballet as well as being a part of numerous contemporary collaborations. He has been nominated as dancer of the year by all of the major dance publications around the world for dance works ranging from classical to dramatic to contemporary. McKie has choreographed two dance works for Stuttgart's Noverre Society and also created a Pas de Deux to R. Strauss' Wiegenlied for Olga Smirnova of the Bolshoi Ballet. He is a noted visual artist specializing in portraits of his friends in the worlds of theatre and fashion. He was one of the last graduates of the late Russian ballet pedagogue, Pyotr Pestov.McKie is the recipient of Italy's ApuliArte Merit prize 2012 for highest international achievement in dance and commitment to the Arts 2012.