Jeff Edwards joined The Washington Ballet in August 2003 as the The Washington Ballet's Artistic Associate and was appointed Associate Artistic Director in June 2004. Mr. Edwards began training as a gymnast at age five and started serious classical training a few years later under Mansur Kamaletdinov, former director of the Bolshoi Ballet. He received a Ford Foundation Scholarship at age 14 to study at the School of American Ballet in New York City, the official school of New York City Ballet. Mr. Edwards has performed and worked with some of the most illustrious companies in the world, including New York City Ballet, where he danced as a soloist, the internationally renowned Lyon Opera Ballet in France and the Zurich Ballet in Switzerland. He has also developed a project with Twyla Tharp to make her repertory more accessible to universities and conservatories around the world. Mr. Edwards graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University in May 2002, and he studied and worked with Michael Kaiser as a 2002-2003 Vilar Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.