Carrie Ruth Trumbo is a native Floridian, and received her formal training at the Orlando Ballet School. Upon graduating, she spent a season as a trainee with Charlotte Ballet studying with Patricia McBride and Mark Diamond. The following year she joined Tulsa Ballet’s second company, where she spent two seasons before being promoted to the main company in 2011. While with Tulsa Ballet, Carrie Ruth performed repertoire by Twyla Tharp, Ronald Hynd, George Balanchine, Ben Stevenson, Edwaard Liang, and John Cranko. She then joined Ballet Des Moines in its inaugural season, where she performed soloist roles in a variety of original works, most notably Within The Bodies and Angeli, both by Ma Cong. She also danced with American Contemporary Ballet in Los Angeles for their 2014 summer season. In 2016, Carrie Ruth returned to Oklahoma where she danced with Oklahoma City Ballet for five seasons. Some favorite performance opportunities include Septime Webre’s Alice (in Wonderland), Agnes DeMille’s Rodeo, First Theme in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Holiday Wife and Bride in Michael Pink’s Dracula, Russian demi-soloist in Balanchine’s Serenade, and Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye’s Separation.
Carrie Ruth discovered her interest in choreography through OKCB’s Future Voices production, for which she was selected to create two original works, You See What You Look For and Whistling in The Dark.
In 2021, she became an integral part of forming Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, a new company in Dallas, Texas where she currently holds the title of Resident Choreographer. She has created six new works for the company, including collaborations with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Verdigris Ensemble. Her work Cutting Room Floor was awarded a TACA pop up grant in 2022, and she premiered her first evening-length ballet, Amor Fati: An Evening of Greek Mythology, in June of 2023 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. This was the first ballet to ever be presented at this historic Frank Llyod Wright theater. The show also featured actors, and an original script that Carrie Ruth wrote. The Dallas Morning News covered the premiere, stating that her
“...choreography leaves an immediate impression, that of an original voice. The Florida native doesn’t rely on a set movement vocabulary or ideas borrowed from others to derive steps…”
Also in the summer of 2023, Carrie Ruth was invited to create a new work at the prestigious National Choreographers Initiative in Irvine, CA, under the direction of Molly Lynch.
She initiated Pegasus Contemporary Ballet’s relationship with Klyde Warren Park, for which she choreographed a work for the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Lighting, and will continue to create outreach performances through the Spring of 2024.
Her most recent work, All Rise, is an immersive ballet that utilizes the facility in which it will be performed, moving the audience through the space on a tour of sorts. When not choreographing, she serves as rehearsal director for other new creations and performs with the Osage Ballet.