Biography

Daniel Cooper began his training at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and attended summer programs at the School of American Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. He completed his training at the San Francisco Ballet School, where he was selected by Helgi Tomasson to join the school’s pilot trainee program in 2005. From there he was offered a corps de ballet position with Boston Ballet by Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen, where he danced for three seasons.

Cooper joined the corps de ballet at Pennsylvania Ballet for the 2008–2009 season. His repertoire includes George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments (Phlegmatic), Agon (Second Pas de Trois), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lysander and Bottom), Emeralds from Jewels (Pas de Trois), William Forsythe’s The Second Detail, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, and Artifact Suite, Jiří Kylián’s Forgotten Land (Red Couple), Wayne McGregor’s Chroma,  Matthew Neenan’s 11:11, Alexei Ratmansky’s Jeu de Cartes, Jerome Robbins’ The Concert (or the Perils of Everybody) (Shy Boy), Christopher Wheeldon’s Swan Lake (Pas de Quatre) and After the Rain, and Cooper has originated roles in the three Matthew Neenan works including Beside Them, They Dwell, Shift to Minor, and Archiva.

His other repertoire includes George Balanchine’s Square Dance, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Rubies, Who Cares?, and Allegro Brillante, Jerome Robbins N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, and Twyla Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove. His featured roles with Boston Ballet include Alexander Ekman’s Cacti and William Forsythe’s Artifact 2017.

Cooper joined Boston Ballet in 2005, and returned in 2016 as an artist of the Company.