Lucy Van Cleef received her dance training from the School of American Ballet (NY), San Francisco Ballet School, Ballet Academy East (NY) and New Jersey School of Ballet. She danced in the United States with Los Angeles Ballet, and in Europe with Tivoli Ballet Theatre in Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Opera, and the Opera Ballet of Deutsche Oper Berlin, in works by George Balanchine, August Bournonville, Uwe Scholz, and Nils Christe, among many others. Alongside performing, she also choreographed original works for the New York Choreographic Institute, Los Angeles Ballet, and Tivoli Ballet Theatre.

In 2015, she became a correspondent for the international magazine Dance Europe, for which she regularly contributed performance reviews, artist and company profiles, and think pieces. She has also written for Pointe and Dance, and has contributed program texts to Staatsballett Berlin, Royal Swedish Ballet, and Compañia National de Danza, Mexico. 2020 saw the release of her debut translation “Black Leviathan”, by Bernd Perplies, for Tor Books, from German to English.

Lucy Van Cleef holds a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Mary’s College of California and a Master of Arts in critical dance studies from Freie Universität Berlin. Her thesis “Touching the Past: Transmission and Cross-Temporal Archiving of August Bournonville’s La Sylphide (1836)” explores the meeting points of cross-temporality, memory studies, and affective transmission, focusing on the afterlife of a 19th century romantic ballet as a living tradition.

For the 2024/25 season, Lucy Van Cleef joins the Stuttgart Ballet as Head of Dramaturgy and Publications, a role in which she can bring all sides of her dance, writing, and research backgrounds to the fore.