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Michael Russell began freestyle skiing in a format known as ballet skiing as a youth and participated in his first competitions in the early 1970s. As a competitor, Russell was featured on ABC's Wide World of Sports, CBS Sports Spectacular, and on French, Austrian, German, Italian, and Canadian sports television. He was the captain of the United States Freestyle Ski Team and winner of three World Cups in ballet skiing. In 1979, at the age of twenty-two, Russell retired from competitive ballet skiing. In 1980, he created the SnowDance Company, a small group of skiers that toured the country, performing choreographed dances on mountainside stages. Although Russell later resigned as the director of the company, he continued to be involved in the performing arts with the Ballet Montana Company as the Director of Development. He appeared in dozens of television-magazine shows throughout the United States, as well as in Ski and Skiing magazines. In 2022, he published Winterdanse: The Misplaced Art of Snow Ballet.