Leigh Alderson | |
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Born | 5 December 1986 |
Origin | Northern Ireland |
Genres | Pop, dance, disco, house, electronica |
Years active | 1998- Present |
Website | leighalderson |
Leigh Alderson (born 1986) is a male ballet dancer, model and actor from Portadown, Northern Ireland. He began dancing at the age of seven at The Donna Whitten Dance School, and later The Susan McMillan Ballet School. After training with both teachers for three years, Alderson went on to the Royal Ballet School in London for eights years training.
Alderson received several awards including The Lynn Seymour Award for Most Expressive Dancer 2004, The Royal Ballet School Achievement Award 2005, The NJL Sponsored Award for Choreographic Development 2005 and The Royal Ballet School Achievement Award 2006. Alderson was also nominated for 2 consecutive years for Arts Personality of the Year 2009/10 for the Ulster Tatler: People Of The Year Award.
Whilst in the last three years of his training, Alderson travelled to Toronto, Canada to perform in a production of Four Last Songs's by Rudi van Dantzig, and then performed it again in Stuttgart, Germany. He also performed Colourblind, a duet with Jay Hale-Christofi which he himself choreographed to much critical success, both in Palermo, Sicily and at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
After graduating in 2006 and up to 2008, Alderson danced with the Scottish Ballet. He danced in Page's Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, Pastor's Romeo and Juliet and In Light and Shadow, Brown's MG the Movie and forsyth's Artifact.
In 2008, Alderson signed a contract with new ballet company New English Contemporary Ballet, and began dancing with them in February 2009. Alderson was a guest artist with Ballet Russe, the UK's Russian Ballet Company, performing principal roles in their production of Swan Lake, Cinderella, Nutcracker, Coppelia and Giselle, guesting also as a principal dancer with Cork City Ballet, Ireland's premiere ballet company at the same time.
In March 2009, Alderson was signed with Dublin-based modeling agency, Rogue Models.
Alderson was nominated for The Arts Personality of the Year Award for the Ulster Tatler Awards 2009 and 2010. The Nominees would feature in the September edition of The Ulster Tatler and the winners announced on 24 September at The Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Alderson lost out to actor Dan Gordon.