Jiří Kylián (Czechoslovakia, 1947) started his dance career at the age of nine, at the School of the National Ballet in Prague. In 1962 he was accepted as a student at the Prague Conservatory. He left Prague when he received a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School in London in 1967.  After this, he left to join the Stuttgart Ballett led by John Cranko. Kylián made his debut as a choreographer here with Paradox for the Noverre Gesellschaft. After having made three ballets for Nederlands Dans Theater (Viewers, Stoolgame and La Cathédrale Engloutie), he became artistic director of the company in 1975. In 1978 he put Nederlands Dans Theater on the international map with Sinfonietta. That same year, together with Carel Birnie, he founded Nederlands Dans Theater II, which served as a bridge between school and professional company life and was meant to give young dancers the opportunity to develop their skills and talents and to function as a breeding ground for young talent. He also initiated Nederlands Dans Theater III in 1991, the company for older dancers, above forty years of age. This three dimensional structure was unique in the world of dance. After an extraordinary record of service, Kylián handed over the artistic leadership in 1999, but remained associated to the dance company as house choreographer until December 2009. 

José Limón (1908-1972) electrified the world with his dynamic masculine dancing and dramatic choreography. One of the 20th century’s most important and influential dance makers, he spent his entire career pioneering a new art form and fighting for the recognition and establishment of the American Modern Dance. Born in Culiacán, Mexico in 1908, he immigrated to California in 1915, and in 1928 Limón came to New York and saw his first dance program. Limón enrolled in the dance school of Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman and, from 1930 - 1940, performed in works created by his teachers. In 1946, with Doris Humphrey as Artistic Director, Limón formed his own company. Over the following 25 years, he established himself and his company as one of the major forces of 20th century dance. Limón was a key faculty member in The Juilliard School's Dance Division beginning in 1953 and continued choreographing until his death in 1972. Limón choreographed a total of seventy-four works, including The Moor’s Pavane, Missa Brevis, There is a Time, The Traitor, and Psalm.

Robert Battle became artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in July 2011 after being personally selected by Judith Jamison, making him only the third person to head the Company since it was founded in 1958. Mr. Battle had a long-standing association with AILEY before leading the Company. 

Jamar Roberts is a prolific and highly in-demand choreographer who has made works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Ballet, Miami City Ballet, The Martha Graham Company, Ballet X,  The Juilliard School, Ailey 2, and New York City Center’s Fall for Dance, and he also served as a Creative Associate for The Juilliard School for the 2023-2024 season. Roberts, a graduate of the New World School of the Arts and the Ailey School has danced for AAADT, Ailey II, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, won the 2016 “Bessie” award for outstanding performer, and has performed as a guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London and made multiple television performance appearances. In 2020, the March on Washington Film Festival invited Roberts to create a dance on film tribute to the Honorable John Lewis. Other highlights include Works and Process at the Guggenheim, where he created the acclaimed short work on the film Cooped and A Chronicle of a Pivot at a Point in Time, which premiered on film in 2021 and was restaged for a live performance world premiere in 2022. Roberts was a director’s fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts in the 2020-21 season and he has also made a short film for the LA Opera entitled The First Bluebird in the Morning. His first narrative ballet, Resurrection, premiered at San Francisco Ballet in January 2023. This summer, he also returns to Vail as an Artist-In-Residence.