Melissa Hough, First Soloist

Birthplace
Baltimore, Maryland

Dance Training
Kirov Academy of Ballet, Washington, D.C.
Dance Explosion, Glen Burnie, Maryland

Joined the Company
2010

Promoted to First Soloist
2012

Defining Moment: Those rare performances when you feel you succeeded in having the audience understand what you were trying to say to them.

Melissa Hough was a bronze medal winner in the 2005 Helsinki International Ballet Competition, a jury award of merit winner from the Jackson International Ballet Competition in 2002 and a senior outstanding dancer at New York City Dance Alliance in 2002.  She trained with The Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D.C. and has danced professionally with BalletMet, M & Company, and Boston Ballet, where she reached the rank of principal in 2009. She joined Houston Ballet as a soloist in 2010.   Her classical repertoire includes Nicholas Sergeyev's The Sleeping Beauty, Mikko Nissinen's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, James Kudelka's Cinderella, Rudolf Nureyev's Don Quixote, George Balanchine's Rubies, Ballo della Regina, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, to name a few.  Her contemporary repertoire includes such works as Jiří Kylián's Petite Mort and Falling Angels, William Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated, and Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room.