Joseph Phillips

Joseph Phillips grew up in Columbia. His first role was Nicholas in Carolina Ballet’s Nutcracker at Township Auditorium. He trained with Stanislav Issaev at the University of South Carolina, and when Issaev became dean of dance at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Joseph followed him there.

He went on to the North Carolina School of the Arts, and Issaev remained his principal teacher and coach. He won gold medals at the USA International Ballet Competition, the first Prague International Ballet Competition, and the Youth America Grand Prix Finals, all in 2002, and in Seoul in 2008, more than any other American male dancer.

He danced with San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. In 2013 he became a principal dancer with the Mariinsky Theatre. He is one of a handful of Americans ever to hold that rank. In the Philippines he became the only foreign artist to dance with all three national companies, and at Ballet Philippines he served as Resident Choreographer and Interim Artistic Director.

In 2020 he and Misty Copeland created Swans for Relief, which linked 32 dancers in 14 countries through The Dying Swan. It passed five million views, and CNN International named it one of the top ten performances of the pandemic.

As Artistic Director of Columbia Classical Ballet, he brought the company and its school together under one nonprofit and one board for the first time in Columbia’s history. Columbia gave him the Key to the City and named July 17 Joseph Phillips Day. In June 2027 the USA International Ballet Competition brings him back to Jackson to honor its gold medalists at its 50th anniversary. His first book, The Line, shaped like a full-length ballet, comes out next year.