Helen Pickett

Born in San Diego, CA, Helen Pickett, has created over 60 ballets in the US, UK and Europe, including full-length narratives such as The Crucible, which won the UK Theatre Critics’ Award and the Herald Angel Award, Emma Bovary, Crime and Punishment and Lady Macbeth. She has choreographed 12 dance films, including The Air Before Me, winner of the Audience Choice Award for Screen Dance International Festival, Hurley Burley, nominated for an Emmy Award and Warehouse Dances, recipient of an Official Selection citation for the Boston Dance Film Festival. Helen was Resident Choreographer for Atlanta Ballet from 2012 to 2017.

Helen danced with William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt for 11 years and performed with The Wooster Group under director Elizabeth LeCompte from 1999 to 2003. She collaborated as a choreographer and actress with the filmmakers Eve Sussman, Toni Dove and Laurie Simmons. During the pandemic, Helen produced 83 interviews for her YouTube talk show, Creative Vitality Jam Sessions, and founded the Female Choreographer’s Big Round Table, a Zoom discussion panel with 160 women in the roster. In 2026, Helen co-authored an article, with Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, PhD., Routledge’s Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader, 3rd Edition. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Hollins University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The University of North Carolina School of the Arts.