Laurent Novis won the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris’s first prize in 1982, allowing him to enter the Paris Opera Ballet School. He joined the company in 1984 and was promoted to Coryphee in the same year. He received the Carpeaux Prize for the Best Young Talent in the company, and was promoted to Sujet in 1989.

Laurent’s repertory with the Paris Opera Ballet includes soloist and principal parts in :
Rudolph Nuryev’s Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Bayadère, Cinderella and The Nutcracker as well as Serge Lifar’s Suite en Blanc, Pierre Lacotte’s La Sylphide, Joseph Lazzini’s La Fille Mal Gardée, Anthony Tudor’s Continuo and Patrice Bart’s Coppélia. He dances works by George Balanchine such as Divertimento no 15, Symphony in Three Movements, Concerto Barocco and The Four Temperaments.

Laurent has worked with choreographers such as:
Nils Christie (Before Nightfall)
Hans Van Manen (Grosse Fugue)
Lar Lubovitch (Hautbois).
Twyla Tharp (As Time Goes By)
Roland Petit (Le Loup; Carmen; Rhythmes de valses)
Maurice Béjart (Le Concours, La IXe Symphonie)
Jiří Kylián (Sinfonietta; Tantz-Schul; Stepping Stones)
William Forsythe (In The Middle Somewhat Elevated; Pas.parts)
Jerome Robbins (Glass Pieces; Moves; The Concert; In The Night).

During his time at Paris Opera Ballet, Laurent has twice taken a years leave of absence to pursue projects.
In 1991 he danced with the English National Ballet as Principal Dancer, dancing the principal roles in Taming of the Shrew (John Cranko), Etudes (Harold Lander), and Coppélia (Ronald Hynd). In 1997 he joined Les Ballets de Monte Carlo as Principal Guest Artiste, dancing in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Violin Concerto and Who Cares?, and Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Romeo and Juliet and L'île.

He has also appeared as guest artiste with the Birmingham Royal Ballet where he danced The Nutcracker by Peter Wright and Romeo and Juliet by Kenneth MacMillan, and also with Scottish Ballet in Galina Samsova’s Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

Though Laurent is still dancing he also teaches. He has taught at the Yorkshire Ballet Seminars in England, in Japan and in Monte Carlo. Since 2003 Laurent has been teaching at the Paris Opera Ballet and at the Paris Opera Ballet School.

CRITICS

The Sleeping Beauty (Edinburgh)

"Laurent Novis is every inch the Prince, investing each step and gesture with a regal flourish and ripping through his solos with a debonair dash." C. Clark

The Taming of the Shrew (London)

"Laurent Novis is a rising dancer who has joined from Paris Opera, he responds with lively cheelfulness to the role’s dramatic opportunities, dancing with both polish and swagger." J. Percival

Swan Lake (Glasgow)

"The Prince and Princess were danced by Laurent Novis and Daria Klimentová, whose dancing flowed with natural grace and expressive power. Their Act 3 pas de deux, particulary where the prostrate Klimentová seemed to fly into Novis’s arms was breathtaking. His height and extension was a perfect match for his radiant and beguiling partner." J. Love

The Taming of the Shrew (Oxford)

"Monday’s pairing of Lynne Charles as Katherina the shrew and Laurent Novis as Petruchio her suitor, would be hard to beat. Mr Novis seems able to lift his partner on one finger and simultaineously mange emotion all the way from the very tender to the downright oafish." G. Woodforde

The Sleeping Beauty (Paris)

"Laurent Novis has exceptional physique which makes him believable as soon as he enters the stage, a poetry, natural elegance, grace, a sense of theatricality, musicality, and of course the essential technique which permits him to execute this difficult choreography." G. Mannoni