MIKKO NISSINEN

Mikko Nissinen is the Artistic Director of Boston Ballet and the Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education, positions he has held since September 2001. He also continues to teach at a number of dance schools and summer intensives. Born in Helsinki, Finland and trained at the Finnish National Ballet School and The Kirov Ballet School, he won First Prize at The National Ballet Competition in Kuopio, Finland in 1978. Mr. Nissinen subsequently danced with the Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet, where he was a principal dancer for 10 years. After retiring from San Francisco Ballet in 1996, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Marin Ballet in San Rafael, California. Two years later, he was appointed Artistic Director of Alberta Ballet. In 1992 Mr. Nissinen was the subject of a cover story in Dance Magazine and a profile on the television program CNN Worldwide. In the summer of 2002, he completed the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders in the Arts at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.