![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774966088_208_.webp\")
Ben Stevenson served as Texas Ballet Theater\u2019s artistic director for nearly 20 years. (Courtesy | Ben Stevenson Trust)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tBen Stevenson served as Texas Ballet Theater\u2019s artistic director for nearly 20 years. (Courtesy | Ben Stevenson Trust)<\/p>\n
Ben Stevenson, the longest serving artistic director at Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth who previously led the Houston Ballet, died March 29 \u2014 just days before his birthday. He was 89.<\/p>\n
Stevenson was a legendary ballet dancer who led the North Texas company from 2003 to 2022 and established the group\u2019s residencies at Bass Performance Hall and AT&T Performing Arts Center\u2019s Winspear Opera House in Dallas.<\/p>\n
He led some of the company\u2019s most successful productions, including \u201cSwan Lake,\u201d \u201cRomeo and Juliet,\u201d \u201cDracula\u201d and \u201cThe Nutty Nutcracker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas Ballet Theater elevated him to artistic director laureate<\/a> \u2014 an honorary title \u2014 in June 2022. He remained involved with the company\u2019s schools, choreographed new works and provided artistic coaching to students.<\/p>\n Current artistic director Tim O\u2019Keefe said Stevenson was not only a mentor but a family member whose artistry, generosity and vision shaped \u201cthe very heart of Texas Ballet Theater.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will miss his wisdom, his humor, and his boundless passion for storytelling through dance,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cWhile my heart is heavy with grief, I am profoundly grateful for the decades of inspiration and love he shared with me and with this company. His spirit will live on in every performance, every dancer, and every audience moved by his work.\u201d<\/p>\n In a 2023 video with KERA<\/a>, Stevenson said his mission was to spread ballet across Fort Worth and \u201ceducate the public\u201d about the art form.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople go, \u2018Oh I saw that ballet. I don\u2019t like it,’\u201d he said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t go to one movie and say, \u2018I\u2019m never going back again.\u2019 There\u2019s all sorts of new works that are coming out. … Dance is so exciting. Movement is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevenson was born on April 4, 1936, in Portsmouth, England. He trained at London\u2019s Arts Educational School and was awarded the Adeline Gen\u00e9e Gold Medal, the highest honor from the Royal Academy of Dance.<\/p>\n At 18, he joined Sadler\u2019s Wells Royal Ballet, now known as The Royal Ballet.<\/p>\n The dancer\u2019s arrival to the U.S. came in 1968 when he led the Harkness Youth Dancers in New York. Two years later, he choreographed works for the inaugural season of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.<\/p>\n In 1976, a 38-year old Stevenson made his way to Texas as artistic director of Houston Ballet. For nearly three decades, he transformed the small troupe into one of the world\u2019s leading companies and founded the Houston Ballet Academy, according to a press release.<\/p>\n Around this time, he became an honorary faculty member with the Beijing Dance Academy. He was the only foreigner to receive the distinction at the academy and the ShenYang Conservatory of Music.<\/p>\n Stevenson\u2019s international acclaim stretched back to his home country where he was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.<\/p>\n The dancer\u2019s tenure at Texas Ballet Theater started after he was approached by the company\u2019s board to be a \u201ctemporary advisor\u201d and help find a permanent artistic director after its former leader Paul Mejia stepped down, according to a 2004 article<\/a> from D Magazine.<\/p>\n He was honored with the Texas Medal of Arts in 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stevenson is survived by his extended family in Portsmouth. Memorial service details will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Fort Worth Report\u2019s arts and culture coverage is supported in part by the Meta Alice Keith Bratten Foundation and the Virginia Hobbs Charitable Trust. At the Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t