Elija Le

**Elija Yang Le** is an Australian born American choreographer, producer, writer, and retired dancer.

## Early Life

Elija Yang Le was born in Melbourne, Australia on July 23, 1965 to hotel receptionist Amy Parker and Melbourne Airport employee Yang Le. Elija started learning ballet when he was 5 and went on to dance with the Australian Ballet School. Elija graduated from St Albans Secondary College in 1983.

## Career

Elija became an apprentice with The Australian Ballet in 1982. He became a member of the Corps de Ballet in 1983 and eventually a soloist in 1987. In 1990 Elija accepted a position as a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. He danced with the ABT until 2001 when he retired at age 36.

After retiring, Elija became a choreographer for several prestigious Broadway and Off-Broadway theater productions. He also wrote, choreographed and produced several original ballets based on ‘non traditional’ sources such as Shakespeare plays Othello and The Tempest, as well as movies such as The Lion King and Peter Pan. While most of his productions were considered odd by traditional standards, his originality and style have been highly praised, even by diehard classical ballet enthusiasts.

### Snow Leopard Productions

In 2013 Elija and Miranda founded Snow Leopard Productions, an independent film, theater and dance production company. The name Snow Leopard is an amalgamation of both their surnames.

## Personal Life

In 2012, 47 year old Elija met 19 year old New York City Ballet dancer Miranda Snow and she quickly became his muse and romantic partner. During this time Elija also met and formed a lifelong friendship with NYCB dancer Margaret Marks, Elija gave Margaret the role of Miranda in his production of The Tempest. After Margaret retired from ballet in 2014, Elija stayed in touch with her and her future wife Lindsey Shaw.

Elija has been in a long term relationship with Miranda Snow, 28 years his junior, since 2012. Elija and Miranda have never married and have no children, both saying they don’t believe either is right for them.

### Controversies

Elija has been seen as a somewhat controversial figure in the entertainment community due to his openly admitted habit of having sexual relationships with several young female dancers over the years, many of whom have been decades younger than him. Despite this all of the women involved have maintained that all of his sexual relationships have been consensual and respectful, and all have commented on how kind and loving Elija is.

Elija has commented that he views sex and sexuality as it relates to friendship in a different way than most people. He said “I have no taboo around sex and friends! People have needs, desires, things they want to experience, so why not explore them with friends?”.

## Trivia

* Elija’s mother is Australian and his father is half Chinese and half Vietnamese
* Elija has a rule that any dancer or performer who appears nude in a work of his, he does the same to make it equal
* Due to having a feminine personality, Elija considers himself to essentially be lesbian in all but anatomy

## Quotes

* "Miranda is my muse, my inspiration, my heart."
* "Margaret once said “In simplistic terms, ballet is like a play only with the story conveyed through the medium of dance as opposed to spoken dialogue”. She said it perfectly, and that probably explains why I feel so connected to the world of ballet."
* "Miranda and Margaret are two of the most influential dancers I’ve ever met. Not because they had the longest or most illustrious careers, and not because they were the best per say but because they lived it, they’re two of the most genuine and loving people you could ever meet and that was reflected in their dance."
* "I see art everywhere, and I love transforming one style of art into other. That’s why most of my productions are either taken from everyday life or inspired by another medium I love."