Alison Roper was born in Portland, Maine, and began her ballet training at age five with local teachers Jon and Linda Miele. She received her formal dance training from The Portland School of Ballet, Boston Ballet School, and the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. She joined Oregon Ballet Theatre in 1996 and was promoted into the corps in 1997. She was honored by Dance Magazine in 2002 as one of “25 to Watch,” and in 2007 was ranked principal dancer. Her repertoire includes principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Jerome Robbins, Sir Frederick Ashton, Kent Stowell, Peter Martins, Paul Taylor and Bebe Miller. She has originated leading roles in ballets by James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, James Canfield, Christopher Stowell and Nicolo Fonte, among others. In addition to her performances with OBT, Ms. Roper spent her summers performing with the Trey McIntyre Project from 2005-2007 and has since worked as a repetiteur and ballet mistress for that company. In the winter of 2010, Ms. Roper performed with Morphoses: The Wheeldon Company on the West Coast and in Canada.
