Anyone who has ever seen a Forsythe ballet at the Semperoper in Dresden remembers him: Houston Thomas was a fast, indeed explosive dancer with a refined sense of rhythm and springy dynamics; he seemed to dance right on the boundary between virtuosity and cool modernity. Dresden was his first permanent engagement; the young American arrived in the German East from the metropolis of Chicago in 2013.
Although he rose to the rank of soloist, he ended his performing career after ten years because he was determined to pursue choreography. His debut work, Moonlit Variants, premiered in 2018 as part of a "Young Choreographers" evening; the company’s ballet director at the time, Aaron S. Watkin, immediately commissioned him for a first, small-scale project. Houston forged connections back home, ...
