DOUG SINGLETON
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Doug Singleton’s passion for dance began at Spoleto Festival USA with a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After graduating from the College of Charleston, he moved to New York City and spent over five years traveling with the Ailey company. While in New York, he was the producing manager for the premiere performances of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, led by Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, and worked with dance luminaries such as Judith Jamison, Masazumi Chaya, Jerome Robbins, Garth Fagan, ElisaMonte and Lar Lubovitch.
Doug joined Charlotte Ballet in 1996. Now in his 17th year as the company’s executive director, Doug has led Charlotte Ballet through a period of transformational growth and international attention. During his tenure, he has partnered with many community leaders to establish the Reach Program, allowing every child the opportunity to train for dance as a career. He also successfully completed multiple campaigns to enhance the brand and repertoire as well as established a permanent home at the Patricia McBride & Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance in the heart of Charlotte’s vibrant Uptown. During this period, Charlotte Ballet made its first-ever appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and the Joyce Theater in Manhattan with long awaited returns to American Dance Festival as well as Jacob’s Pillow under the artistic leadership of Hope Muir.
In 2008, he received the Charlotte Business Journal’s 40 under 40 Award and was selected to the 2008-2010 Class of the William C. Friday Fellowship of Human Relations at the Wildacres Leadership Initiative. He is currently serving on the Steering Group for the City of Charlotte’s Arts and Culture Advisory Board. He has served as a board member of the Cornelius Arts Center, founding member of Mecklenburg Executive Collaborative and the newly formed artist collaborative, VAPA (Visual and Performing Arts Center). Doug is the past board chair of Dance/USA and has served as a board member of Cain Center for the Arts, the Choir School at St. Peters and ARTS North Carolina, advocating for public funding to support arts programming throughout the state. He has also served on the Arts & Science’s Advisory Council, the Cultural Life Taskforce as well as Knight Arts Advisory Committee, the NC Arts Council’s Grants Panel and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD. He and his wife Viki live in Charlotte and have three grown children.
ALEJANDRO CERRUDO
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Alejandro Cerrudo was born in Madrid, Spain. His professional career includes work with Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC). Cerrudo became HSDC’s first-ever resident choreographer in 2008 and held that position until 2018.
Cerrudo’s body of work has been performed by over 20 professional dance companies around the world. Honors include an award from the Boomerang Fund for Artists (2011) and the Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work from the Prince Charitable Trusts (2012) for his acclaimed, first evening-length work, One Thousand Pieces. In 2014 he was awarded the USA Donnelley Fellowship by United States Artists. Also, Cerrudo was one of four choreographers invited by New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan to create and perform original duets for Restless Creatures. In 2017 Cerrudo was invited by Daniil Simkin to choreograph a site-specific performance for the Guggenheim Rotunda, a Works & Process Rotunda Project commission, featuring Daniil Simkin and original costumes by Dior. Cerrudo’s Sleeping Beauty, created with Ballet Theater Basel in 2016, was nominated as “Production of the Year” in Switzerland in the “Tanz, Jahrbuch 2016” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
In 2020 Cerrudo was appointed Pacific Northwest Ballet’s resident choreographer, with that, he became the first artist in the company’s history to have the honor of holding that title. Independently, he directed and choreographed his show, “It Starts Now,” which premiered in 2020 at The Joyce Theater in New York. In 2022, Cerrudo was appointed artistic director of Charlotte Ballet.
STAFF
Charlotte Ballet’s staff is a group of individuals with a common passion: creating artistically excellent programming from beautiful classics to thought-provoking contemporary works that push the boundaries of ballet.
PHILANTHROPY AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Meg Putnam
Director of Philanthropy & External Relations
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Arionna Johnson
Associate Director of Marketing & Communications
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Jonathan Long
Patron Services & Ticketing Operations Manager
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Lily Herrin
Digital Marketing Manager
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Connor McCarthy
Ticketing Coordinator
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Gretchen Harris
Executive Administrator
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