Michael Breeden | Courtesy of Michael Breeden

Michael Sean Breeden was born in Lexington, Ky. and began his dance training at the Lexington Ballet. He later attended the School of American Ballet, where upon graduation in 2005 he was invited to join Boston Ballet II. Breeden joined Miami City Ballet as an apprentice the following year and was promoted to the corps de ballet in 2008. While at Miami City Ballet, he performed soloist and principal roles in the works of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Frederick Ashton, Justin Peck, Antony Tudor, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Alexei Ratmansky and Liam Scarlett. Breeden also performed professionally with Pennsylvania Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre and Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

While still performing, Breeden gave interactive pre-performance talks for the Miami City Ballet that broadened the audience’s knowledge of the ballets programmed and allowed them to directly question the artists involved. In 2016, he co-founded the podcast ‘Conversations On Dance’ with fellow Miami City Ballet dancer Rebecca King Ferraro. The program has now become the most listened to dance podcast across streaming platforms and has enjoyed residencies at The Kennedy Center, Vail Dance Festival and San Francisco Ballet.

Breeden is now a repetiteur for Justin Peck, having staged his works for Hong Kong Ballet, Ballet Arizona Indiana University, Princeton University and Miami City Ballet. He has taught ballet for Yale University, Kent State University, Mark Morris Dance Center, Ballet Academy East, Ballet Tech and many others. He was the assistant to the director for Troy Schumacher’s BalletCollective from 2017-2020.