Garrett Smith is an American choreographer whose work blends pristine classical craft with a bold, hyper-contemporary physicality. Born in Salt Lake City and trained at Utah Regional Ballet and Houston Ballet Academy, he was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, performing his choreography at the Kennedy Center and visiting the White House—early markers of a career that would straddle elite companies and adventurous new stages.

A former dancer with Houston Ballet and later the Norwegian National Ballet, Smith worked closely with leading voices including Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, and Alexander Ekman while dancing Forsythe repertory—experience that sharpened his instinct for musicality, architectural spacing, and theatrical punch.

As a choreographer he has created for companies across the U.S. and Europe, including Houston Ballet, Ballet West, Cincinnati Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet (winner of the 2015 Genesis International Choreographic Competition), and Philadelphia Ballet, where his 2019 premiere, Reverberance, set dancers amidst a sculptural field of cellos. Recent seasons have extended to marquee European houses, with commissions and stagings at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Mariinsky Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, and Teatro alla Scala (Milan).

Smith’s movement language—clean-lined, tensile, and dynamically phrased—often explores how fleeting encounters ripple into lasting change. That idea threads through Footsteps, first created for Ballet d’Jèrri and now restaged for the company’s Jersey Opera House debut in October 2025. He is currently based in Barcelona.