Mr Jeffrey Hughes

Advisory Board member

Jeffrey Graham Hughes was born in Alameda, California, where he started dancing at the age of six.  His first two teachers were Vern Nerden and Madame Alexandria Baldina from the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg Russia and Ballet Russe circa Nijinsky and Pavlova.  As a youngster he was a member of Oakland Metropolitan Ballet and was a guest artist with several companies in Northern California.

Mr. Hughes was artistic director of Ohio Ballet, interim director and then rehearsal director for Hong Kong Ballet, associate director/ballet master with Ballet de Monterrey, ballet master for Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet, artistic director for Atlanta Ballet’s outreach program, and founder of his own educational performing group Ballet Atlantis.

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Over a twenty-two year professional career as a dancer, he danced principal roles with Joffrey II, Joffrey Ballet, London Festival Ballet, Cleveland/San Jose Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet.  Mr. Hughes had a vast repertoire of roles.  Listed among some of his favorites were the Moor in Jose Limon’s Moor’s Pavane, Fleming Flindt’s The Lesson, Franz in Coppelia, Balanchine’s Tarantella, pas de deux from Le Corsaire, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, one of the two male leads in Lander’s Etudes, Fokine’s Spectre de la Rose, Prince Igor, and Les Sylphides.  He danced in ballets by such choreographers as Ailey, Ashton, Bournonville, Cranko, Nureyev, Robbins, Schaufuss, Tharp, Tudor, and Watts, to mention just a few.  Mr. Hughes was privileged to be in Robert Joffrey’s Remembrances, enjoyed dancing in many of Gerald Arpino’s ballets, and danced and created many roles in Dennis Nahat’s ballets.

Over the past twenty-seven years Mr. Hughes has choreographed over fifty ballets.  His ballets have been performed in the U.S., Asia, Mexico and South Africa.  He has been on the faculty of Hong Kong Academy for the Arts, San Francisco Dance Center and New York Academy of Ballet, among others.  Mr. Hughes taught and choreographed at the prestigious Kaatsbaan Extreme Ballet in New York during the summers of 2014-2016 and Orlando Ballet School during the summers of 2015 and 2016. Mr. Hughes is currently Co-Artistic Director of the Tucson Regional Ballet and on staff as an instructor at Academy of Ballet.