Madeleine Onne

Madeleine Onne has a profound experience from twenty years in the role of Artistic Director from a big organisation like the Royal Opera house in Stockholm, with at the time, over 1000 employees and a very European structure, to the Hong Kong Ballet with around 90 employees and a more North American organisation.

Ms. Onne worked as AD for the Royal Swedish Ballet from 2002-2008 and the the Hong Kong Ballet from 2009-2017. Ms Onne served as the Director of the Houston Ballet Academy in 2017, and she was Director of the Finnish National Ballet from 2018-2022.

Ms Onne's career in ballet spans more than four decades. In 1978, she graduated from the Royal Swedish Ballet School and was engaged as a dancer by the Royal Swedish Ballet. As one of Sweden's leading ballerinas, Madeleine became renowned for her engaging style and dramatic talent. As Principal Dancer of the Royal Swedish Ballet from 1984 to 2002, she danced major roles in almost all classical repertoire but also MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet and Manon, Cranko's The Taming of the Shrew and Onegin, Neumeier's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Peer Gynt and in at that time contemporary ballets by Balanchine, Cullberg, Goh, Kylián, Robbins, Tudor and Béjart.

International performances took her to Canada, China, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, Norway, the Soviet Union, Spain and the U.S.A.

During the season 1985-86, Ms Onne worked as a soloist at the Dallas Ballet in the US.

In 1996 Ms Onne founded the dance company Stockholm 59° North - Soloists of the Royal Swedish Ballet which she led until 2002 - the company at the time consisted of 15 of the Royal Swedish Ballet's most prominent dancers, for which she arranged foreign tours during the RSB's summer vacations

Madeleine Onne has been decorated many times receiving, for example, the Swedish royal medals Litteris et Artibus and the Drottningholm Court theatre's medal. In 1995 she received the title Dancer of the Royal Swedish Court from HRH Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden. In 2009, she was awarded The Royal Swedish Opera's Gold Medal of Honour in recognition of her work as a principal dancer and artistic director at the Royal Swedish Ballet.

Ms Onne has experience sitting on boards of directors of varying kinds. As a member of the Royal Swedish Opera House's Board of Directors, she represented the personnel for a period of six years. On the artistic side she was the vice chairman of the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and the Carina Ari Foundation, both at the appointment of the government.

During her years in Hong Kong, Ms. Onne was a Dance Examiner for Arts Funding in Hong Kong Arts Development Council as well as Consultant for The Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund

Since leaving the post as AD for the Hong Kong Ballet she has been asked to stay as an Honorary Adviser for the company.

Ms Onne has served as a juror for several international ballet competitions, such as The Fedora Prize in Paris, Benois de la Dance in Moscow, YAGP in Tokyo New York, Paris, Barcelona, San Francisco and Toronto, Prix de Lausanne, the Helsinki International Ballet Competition as well as competitions in Korea, China, Hong Kong and Sweden. She has given master classes in many places, including the Beijing Dance Academy, YAGP and Jacob's Pillow.