Michael Shannon is Co-Founder and Academy Director of the Greenwich Ballet Academy and Resident Choreographer for Configuration Dance Theatre, which was awarded Artvoice Best Dance Company in 2008 and 2009. 

Thirty-eight of his contemporary ballets, plays and films have premiered in the United States and Europe since 1995.  Journalists have described his choreography as “genius, superb, ravishing, clever, and sensual,” with diversity “reminiscent of Rhoden, Ek and Kylián.”

Shannon was trained on full scholarship at the School of American Ballet, the National Ballet School of Canada and the Hungarian State Ballet Academy.  Discovered by the Bolshoi at 16 (People Magazine), by 19, he was the first American scholarship graduate of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy.

Shannon was a Principal Dancer for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet, Hungarian State Opera Ballet, Kremlin Palace Ballet Theatre, with commendations from President Bush and President Clinton, and has performed for President and Mrs. Gorbachev, President Nazarbayev, and President and Mrs. Ford. 

He is a National Endowment for the Arts Awardee, and Two-time Laureate and Medal winner of International Ballet Competitions in Paris, France, and Budapest, Hungary. He was Director of the Revived Russian Imperial Theatre of Opera and Ballet under the Patronage of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna. Shannon was co-Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer of Russiches Kammertheater Berlin, and awarded Professor of Choreography from the Ukrainian State Academy of Ballet in 1999, and YAGP Outstanding Choreographer in 2008.

Michael Shannon's approach to student training and professional development program at GBA maximizes mental and physical abilities and versatility in classical and contemporary ballet, and modern dance, elements that are essential to any career in the professional dance world.