Michael Balderrama

Michael Anthony Balderrama is an American choreographer, Broadway dancer, and producer of Mexican American descent, born on May 29, 1973, at Rockford Memorial Hospital. He was raised in Hondo, Texas, a town approximately thirty minutes outside of San Antonio, by his parents Maria Balderrama and Ernesto Balderrama. He has one sister, Michelle. At the start of high school, Balderrama relocated to Rockford, Illinois, where he attended Keith Country Day School on scholarship and graduated at the top of his class. His interest in dance developed during his high school years, and he began taking lessons at Forest Hills Dance Academy in Rockford at the age of seventeen. Upon graduating, he received multiple scholarship offers, including academic and volleyball scholarships to Division I programs such as Pepperdine University, and ultimately enrolled at Grinnell College on a full scholarship. After one year, he left college to pursue a career in dance, returning to Forest Hills Dance Academy to continue training and teaching. Balderrama was married at nineteen for a brief period before divorcing, and at twenty he had a daughter, Samantha LeAnn Worzella, with Amy Kathleen Worzella. He subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, where his professional dancing career began, before eventually moving to New York City, where he has maintained a residence in Manhattan.

Balderrama's first professional dance engagement was with Michael Jackson on the extended version of the song "Ghost." He also performed as a backup dancer for Vanessa Williams at the VMAs during her performance of "Colors of the Wind." His Broadway career spans from 1999 to 2012. His first show was the first national tour of Saturday Night Fever in 1999, which he remained with for three years. He next appeared in Movin' Out, a production built entirely around the music of Billy Joel, followed by Urban Cowboy, during which the Actors' Union strike took place. He subsequently starred in Hot Feet.

Following Hot Feet, Balderrama joined In the Heights, a show that originated off-Broadway before transferring to Broadway, where it ran for four years and won four Tony Awards. He served as dance captain, fight captain, and male swing for the production throughout its Broadway run, which closed in January 2011. During the run, he worked alongside cast members including Corbin Bleu and Jordin Sparks. Balderrama went on to serve as the official choreographer for the second national tour of In the Heights. In early 2013, he co-directed and choreographed Children's Musical Theater San Jose's production of In the Heights, and on February 11, 2013, he returned to New York to perform in a one-night-only benefit concert of the show.

In late 2010 and early 2011, Balderrama founded his own production company, Silver Towers Productions. In mid-2011, he began work on a new show called VolleyGirls alongside other choreography projects. He received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Choreography in 2022.