Ernst Meisner

Director Dutch National Ballet

Since 1 August 2026, Ernst Meisner has been director of Dutch National Ballet, succeeding Ted Brandsen. Before this, he served as artistic director of the Junior Company from 2013 to 2026. Under his leadership, it grew into one of the world’s leading junior companies. From February 2024 to August 2026, he also held the specially created position of associate director of talent development at Dutch National Ballet. In this role, he was responsible for ensuring a continuous, high-quality intake of talented dancers and choreographers. His responsibilities also included programming ballet performances in Studio Boekman and raising the profile of talent development programmes such as the Choreographic Academy, New Moves and NextSteps. In addition, Meisner was artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy from 2018 to 2026.

Meisner completed a large part of his dance training at the Dutch National Ballet Academy and graduated from The Royal Ballet School in the United Kingdom. He subsequently danced with The Royal Ballet from 2000 to 2010 and with Dutch National Ballet from 2010 to 2013. He began developing as a choreographer during his dance career. For The Royal Ballet’s choreographic workshop, he created several works, including What if, which he made for the then promising dancers Melissa Hamilton and Sergei Polunin. During his years as a dancer with Dutch National Ballet, his creations included And after we were (2011), the children’s production The little big chest (2011), Saltarello (2012) and The Dutch National Canta Ballet (2012).

As artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy, Meisner was responsible for transforming its higher professional education programme into an associate degree in Classical Ballet and establishing the BA Teacher of Ballet course, which is unique in the Netherlands. Under his leadership, the Amsterdam International Summer School was also revitalised and now attracts hundreds of dancers from around the world each year. In 2023, the Dutch National Ballet Academy moved into a new building on Nicolaas Tetterodestraat in Amsterdam-Overamstel, designed specifically for dance training.

Alongside his leadership positions, Meisner remained active as a choreographer. For Dutch National Ballet, he created works including Axiom of Choice (2014), Merge (2016), In Transit (2017), Impermanence (2018) and Prometheus (2020–2021). His creations for the Junior Company included Embers (2013), Lollapalooza (2013), No Time Before Time (2016) and Largo (2020). Together with Marco Gerris and his ISH Dance Collective, he also created the successful ‘hip-hop meets ballet’ productions Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe (2015), GRIMM (2018) and Dorian (2023), in which dancers from the Junior Company shared the stage with dancers from ISH. Meisner also created choreographies for the New York Choreographic Institute, dance films by Crystal Ballet and Bounden, a dance app by GameOven Studios.