Amanda Miller

Amanda Miller (USA, 1961) grew up in North Carolina and studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts. She trained in ballet in New York and later joined the Chicago Lyrical Opera Ballet. From 1980 to 1982, she danced with the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

In 1984, Miller joined the Ballett Frankfurt at the invitation of William Forsythe, initially working as a dancer and two years later being appointed as the regular choreographer.

In 1992, she left Frankfurt to found the Pretty Ugly Dance Company as artistic director. Miller toured extensively with her company and gave performances in both Europe and the United States. In 1994, her dance production Night by Itself won the award for Best Choreography and her company won the award for Best Ensemble at the Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Bagnolet.

Miller continued her freelance work throughout the world, choreographing for Frankfurt Ballet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Bat-Sheva Dance Company, Balletto di Toscana, Gulbenkian Ballet, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève and Zurich Ballet, among others, as well as independent commissions and workshops.

In 1997, Miller and the Pretty Ugly Dance Company were offered a home at the Theater Freiburg. In the five-year period as artistic director of Ballet Freiburg Pretty Ugly, Miller performed a large part of her repertoire and created a substantial amount of new work.

Ballet Freiburg Pretty Ugly's roots go back to classical dance, the forms and patterns of which can be discerned in the company's work and which are constantly recalibrated and recreated by artistic director Amanda Miller. She is constantly searching for new possibilities and merges different styles and forms of movement. Literary and artistic influences coupled with an intensive exchange with musical forms, enrich the work of the dancers and facilitate the search for new dimensions in dance.

The Pretty Ugly Dance Company has given numerous performances at the major European dance festivals and toured the United States, India and Japan. Besides her work for Ballet Freiburg Pretty Ugly founded the company Yummi Dance in Japan.

In 2004 she founded the aid organisation Art for Tibet, which aims to support people and projects in Tibet.

Since January 2005 Miller has been artistic director of Pretty Ugly Dance Köln.