Lillian Stillwell works internationally as a freelance choreographer and is Dance Director and Chief Choreographer at Theater Münster in Germany.

Following her career as a dancer in the USA and Germany, her work has been seen at institutions throughout Europe including Oper Zürich, Dutch National Opera & Ballet, the Royal Danish Opera, Palais des les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, the Philharmonie Luxembourg and the Conservatory for Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt. Music is the departure point for Lillian Stillwell’s choreography. Her movement language uses classical ballet as a point of reference in a contemporary dance context that focuses on diversity and authenticity and aims to give form to human potential through choreography.

She has created numerous dance evenings for Tanz Münster since 2022 that have been critically acclaimed and enthusiastically received by audiences. Recent highlights include her interdisciplinary production JEANNE D’ARC (2025), described by tanz magazine as “unconventional” and “a magnificent, complete work of art.” Under her leadership, Tanz Münster has diversified and increased audiences through new outreach formats, received funding from the prestigious Kunststiftung NRW for interinstitutional cooperation and attracted widespread recognition for its artistic quality and sustainability measures.

Her choreography has recently been commissioned by the dance conservatories in Frankfurt and Zurich and has been performed at opera houses such as the Teatro San Carlo (Naples, IT, 2024) and the Semperoper Dresden in Germany (2026). She is engaged as a mentor in the German Cultural Department’s Initiative for Women in Culture and Media and is serving a three-year term on the board of the BBTK, the Association of Ballet and Dance Directors in German-speaking countries.

Lillian Stillwell trained in classical ballet at Ballet Arts Minnesota in the USA before graduating with a B.A. in contemporary dance from the conservatory at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She began her career as an emerging talent with the Milwaukee Ballet and finished it at the Staatstheater Kassel as a longtime dancer with Johannes Wieland. She holds an Executive Master of Arts Administration from the University of Zurich where she wrote her Master’s Thesis on “Dance Programming and Social Sustainability” under Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Elisabeth Bronfen and Prof. Dr. Christina Thurner.