Shelby Williams

Shelby Williams began her ballet training with the Baton Rouge Ballet Theater, and continued her professional training on scholarship at the Washington School of Ballet (Washington, DC) and the Houston Ballet Academy (Houston, TX). From 2007 to 2009, Shelby performed with Houston Ballet as a dancer of Houston Ballet II, under the direction of Claudio Muños and Stanton Welch. She then joined Dresden Semperoper Ballett (Dresden, Germany) for the 2009/2010 season. 

After joining the Ballet d’Europe (Marseille, France) in 2010, she performed soloist roles in neoclassical and contemporary pieces on tour with the company throughout France and Switzerland. In 2012, Shelby performed with Barcelona Ballet (Barcelona, Spain) under the direction of Ángel Corella on tour throughout Spain and in the USA. From 2012-2014 she was a soloist with Ballettmainz of the Mainz State Theater (Mainz, Germany). 

From 2014-2016, Shelby danced for Hessen State Ballet (Wiesbaden/Darmstadt, Germany) as a soloist where she performed works featured roles in full length story ballets and leading roles in works by international choreographers. Shelby joined the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp, Belgium, directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. dancing there for seven very productive seasons. There, she was featured in many principal roles such as Pina in Café Müller and in William Forsythe’s Approximate Sonata.  Shelby now dances with Zurich Ballet, under the direction of Cathy Marston, where she was hired as a soloist for the 2023-2024 season.