Disha Zhang

Disha Zhang was born in Guizhou Province, China, where she began her training in Chinese Dance. She graduated with a Modern Dance Choreography degree from the Beijing Dance Academy in 2002. She was a member of the Beijing Modern Dance Company from 2002 until 2007. Her 2003 work Temporary Residence Permit (renamed The Beijing Story in 2004), on which she collaborated with Hu Lei, established her as a choreographer in China.

She has received numerous choreography awards in China and internationally. Her interdisciplinary collaboration of a full-evening musical theater production of The Petals Rain of the Osmanthus for the Guangxi Song and Dance Theatre received the Grand Prize of the prestigious Wenhua Award in 2010.

Since 2006, Disha has choreographed contemporary dances for Chinese ballet dancers to compete at international ballet competitions. Her Sad Bird received the Choreography Award at the 2018 USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. In 2015, How Beautiful Is Heaven and Linen Braids were choreographed for the National Ballet of China and were performed in the Hamburg Ballet Nijinsky Gala. In 2017, Disha created Us for the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow, which premiered in 2018. Disha’s premiere work for Houston Ballet is her first choreographic commission for an American company.