Born in Fairfield, Connecticut, James Whiteside began his training at age nine at the D’Valda & Sirico Dance and Music Centre, where guest faculty included Charles Kelley, Franco De Vita and Raymond Lukens. He continued his training at the Virginia School of the Arts for one year under the direction of Petrus Bosman and David Keener. In 2002, Whiteside joined Boston Ballet II, where he continued to train under the tutelage of its director Raymond Lukens, now director of ABT’s National Training Curriculum. Whiteside joined the corps de ballet of Boston Ballet in 2003 and became a second soloist in 2006. He was promoted to first soloist in 2008 and to principal dancer with Boston Ballet in 2009.Whiteside’s repertoire with Boston Ballet included Principal roles in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Coppélia, Ballo della Regina, Rubies, The Four Temperaments(Sanguinic), Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Who Cares?, Serenade, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Symphony in 3 and La Valse; Maina Gielgud’s Giselle; Mikko Nissinen’s The Nutcracker and Swan Lake; John Cranko’s Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet; Marius Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty and Raymonda Act III; Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies; Jiří Kylián’s Bella Figura, Sarabande, Petite Mort and Sechs Tänze; Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room; and Mark Morris’ Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes. He created roles in Jorma Elo’s Brake the Eyes, Plan to B, Carmen, Slice to Sharper and In On Blue; Helen Pickett’s Eventide and Etesian; and Mark Morris’ Up & Down.
Whiteside joined American Ballet Theatre as a Soloist in September 2012 and was named a Principal Dancer in October 2013. His repertoire with the Company includes Solor in La Bayadère, the Prince in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, Ali, the Slave in Le Corsaire, Basilio and Espada in Don Quixote, Oberon in The Dream, the third sailor in Fancy Free, Albrecht in Giselle, Lescaut in Manon, the Nutcracker Prince in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried and von Rothbart (Ballroom) in Swan Lake, Orion inSylvia, Caliban in The Tempest and leading roles in Bach Partita, Duo Concertant, Gong, Chamber Symphony, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, In the Upper Room, Raymonda Divertissements, Sinfonietta, Symphony in C and Theme and Variations.