Septime Webre

Septime Webre is the Artistic Director of Hong Kong Ballet and the Washington, D.C.-based S&R Foundation which launched Halcyon Stage in 2017, a new interdisciplinary performance and dialogue series. From 1999 until 2016, Webre served as the Artistic Director of the Washington Ballet and from 1993 to 1999 was the Artistic Director of the American Repertory Ballet based in Princeton, New Jersey.

During his tenure at The Washington Ballet, the institution enjoyed unprecedented growth in the scope and quality of its work on stage, its school grew from 325 students to 1,500 students, and the organization developed impactful community engagement initiatives including the award-winning Dance DC and TWB@THE ARC, both of which he founded. Webre launched an array of artistic initiatives for the Ballet including The American Experience, which developed great works of literature into full-length ballets, including The Great Gatsby and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, among others. He also developed partnerships with many colleague arts institutions in the Washington, D.C. area, including collaborating with Imagination Stage on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2012 and The Little Mermaid in 2016.

As a choreographer, Webre’s works appear in the repertoires of ballet companies throughout North America, including Pacific Northwest Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Colorado Ballet, Ballet West, Atlanta Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Austin, Ballet Memphis, Milwaukee Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico, and many others. He has served on the boards of Dance/USA and Dance Metro DC and his work has received numerous honors, grants and awards. He holds a degree in History/Pre-Law from the University of Texas at Austin, and is the seventh son of a large, boisterous Cuban-American family.