Biography
Helen Pickett studied dance at The San
Francisco Ballet School. While in school, she performed with San
Francisco Ballet Company under the direction of Michael Smuin and
Lew Christensen, and later, Helgi Tomasson
For over a decade, she performed, as a dancer
and actor, with Ballet Frankfurt, dir., William Forsythe, becoming
a principal in 1991. Helen performed with The Wooster Group, dir.
Elizabeth Le Compte, from 1998-2005. She was part of the original
cast of the OBIE award winning House/Lights. From 2005
through the present, Helen has been a guest performer in William
Forsythe’s Impressing the Czar with The Royal Ballet of
Flanders in Belgium, Holland, France, Scotland, Germany, and in
the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. On November 6th, 7th and
8th she perform Czar in London, England at Sadler’s Wells..
In 2005, Mikko Nissinen, director of The
Boston Ballet offered Helen her first choreographic commission, Etesian.
She was awarded a grant from The New York Choreographic Institute
in September 2006 for Work in Progress choreographed for
Boston Ballet. In 2006, she also choreographed for The Sacramento
Ballet and The Washington Ballet. Her latest commissions include EVENTIDE for
Boston Ballet, Petal for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, UNION for
Ballet X, upon your held-out hand for Louisville
Ballet (Etesian Fall 2008), and 15 parts of memory for
Purchase University. In 2007 Helen was named one of 25 to Watch
from Dance magazine.
During the past five years, she has collaborated,
as an actress and choreographer, with installation video artists
and filmmakers. Helen, who is a founding member of The Rufus Corporation,
director Eve Sussman, played the Queen in the company’s first film,
89 Seconds at Alcazar, which was shown at the 2004 Whitney Biennial,
and now is in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art
in New York. In February 2007, The Rufus Corporation’s new feature
length film, The Rape of The Sabine Women, premiered in New York
at the IFC Theater. She also played Sally Rand in Toni Dove's
video installation and feature film, Spectropia. Helen will
act in a new European feature film that will begin filming in 2009.
Helen has taught, Forsythe-based improvisation,
her own workshop entitled The Expansive Artist and ballet throughout
Europe and the United States.
Helen’s article Considering Cezanne,
was published in Dance Europe’s April 2006 issue.