Cédric Ygnace

Born in France, Cédric Ygnace received his training as a dancer at the Académie de Danse Princesse Grace de Monaco under the direction of Marika Besobrasova as part of a John Gilpin scholarship. Engagements took him to Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo from 1996 to 1998 and to Het Nationale Ballet Amsterdam as Principal Dancer from 1998 to 2012. He has been invited as a guest to numerous international galas and companies and has worked with choreographers such as Ted Brandsen, Caroline Carlson, David Dawson, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Martha Graham, Jean-Christophe Maillot, Maguy Marin, Hans van Manen, Mark Morris, Krzysztof Pastor and Alexei Ratmansky.
Among the awards he has received are the Prix de Lausanne, the Gold Medal of the Rieti Competition, the Prix Danza & Danza and the Espoir de la Danse International in 1996, the Alexandra Radius Prize in 2004, the Golden Swan Award in 2009, and a double nomination for the Prix Benois de la Danse in 2010.
Cédric Ygnace’s repertoire includes leading roles in Swan Lake (Rudi van Dantzig), The Sleeping Beauty (Sir Peter Wright), The Nutcracker (Toer van Schayk & Wayne Eagling), La Sylphide (Dinna Bjørn), Onegin (John Cranko), Cinderella and Midsummer Night’s Dream (Frederick Ashton), Giselle (versions by Maina Gielgud, Rachel Beaujean & Ricardo Bustamante), La Bayadère (Natalia Makarova), Don Quixote (Alexei Ratmansky), Nijinsky and Don Giovanni (Krzysztof Pastor), and Petrushka (Michel Fokine). Cédric Ygnace has also danced numerous roles in George Balanchine’s ballets, including Apollo, Agon, Concerto Barocco, Donizetti Variations, Jewels, Square Dance, Serenade, Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, The Four Temperaments, Theme and Variations, The Prodigal Son, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux, and Violin Concerto. Furthermore, his repertoire includes works by Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp.
Since 2013, Cédric Ygnace has been ballet master and assistant to choreographers and directors such as Krzysztof Pastor (Polish National Ballet), Martynas Rimeikis (Lithuanian National Ballet), Madeleine Onne (Finnish National Ballet), Aivars Leimanis (Latvian National Ballet) and Nina Poláková (Slovak National Ballet). He staged works by Krzysztof Pastor, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, David Dawson, Dinna Bjørn or Wayne Eagling and assisted choreographers such as Alexei Ratmansky, Patrick Delcroix, Eric Gauthier, David Nixon, Jane Smulder & Aurélien Scanella or Lucette Aldous. As a teacher and coach, he has worked with Queensland Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The West Australian Ballet, with whom he was associated as Principal Ballet Master from 2016 to 2018, and The Australian Conservatory Melbourne. From 2019 to 2021, he was a teacher and coordinator at the European School of Ballet in Amsterdam. Since the 2023/24 season Cédric Ygnace has been a ballet master at the Vienna State Ballet.