About
A principal dancer with the Paris Opera from 1976 to 2000, Florence Clerc has worked with the world’s greatest choreographers and dancers including Yvette Chauviré, Rudolph Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov at the American Ballet Theater.
Today, Florence Clerc devotes herself to transmission and is invited all over the world to help dancers obtain the depth of classical ballet roles.
Florence Clerc entered the Opera dance school in 1962 where she had Serge Peretti, Alexandre Kalioujny and Christiane Vaussard as teachers, and the latter had a great influence on her learning. In 1967, she was admitted to the corps de ballet where she climbed all the ranks. Since her appointment to the rank of coryphae in 1969, Florence Clerc played solo roles outside the Opera. In 1975, she was promoted to first dancer and was entrusted to the opera of star roles in La Bayadère, Le Loup, Le Boléro, etc. In the same year, she won the bronze medal at the Tokyo International Competition. In 1976, Michaël Barychnikov chose her to dance her version of The Nutcracker at the American Ballet Theater.
Florence Clerc was consecrated a star dancer in 1978 when she took a role in Giselle. In 1983, Rudolph Nureyev entrusted her with the title role of the ballet Raymonda which she went back to the Paris Opera. After retiring *, she became a rehearsal assistant for the Paris Opera Ballet. In parallel, she went back to Rudolph Nureyev's ballets for some companies, like La Bayadere at the Boston Ballet in 2010.