Martin Howland was born in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, and trained at The Elwyn school of Dance and also performed with The Northern Ballet in ‘A Simple Man’. At the age of 11 Martin was accepted to the ‘Royal Ballet School’ and began 5 years of classical training at White Lodge in Richmond Park. During his training Martin performed with The Royal Ballet Company in various productions including ‘The Prince of the Pagodas’ and ‘The Nutcracker’. After graduating from the lower school Martin continued his professional training at The Royal Ballet Upper School for a further 2 years, whilst continuing to work with the company in numerous productions including, Romeo & Juliet, Petrushka, La Valse and Cinderella. Martin graduated the Royal Ballet School in 1995. Martin began his career in Germany dancing for the ‘Deutsche Oper am Rhein’ in Dusseldorf working for director Heinz Spoerli in productions such as Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Goldberg Variations.

Upon leaving Germany, Martin returned to the U.K to join City Ballet of London as a soloist for 3 years. Harold King created the role of the betrayed soldier in ‘Carmen’ for him. He also performed in several touring productions of ‘Cinderella’,’ Les Patineurs’ and a new production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. A change of direction followed as Martin played the role of the ‘Slave master’ in Cameron Mackintosh’s national tour of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, after which new horizon’s beckoned and Martin moved to Japan to join Tetsuya Kumakawa’s K-Ballet in Tokyo where Martin danced various soloist roles in ballet’s such as ‘Raymonda’, ‘Facade’, and ‘Giselle’. Continuing to work in the Far East he was offered contracts to perform as an International Guest Principal Dancer and played the lead role of the Prince in productions of Swan Lake and Nutcracker.

Further tour’s of Europe continued as a guest principal with various companies before Martin finally moved to Cape Town City Ballet to play the Prince in the companies production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. Shortly after Martin began teaching and coaching for the West End musical ‘Billy Elliot’ and still to this day works on the development of the young dancers aspiring to perform in the show. Teaching in various colleges and dance schools in London, Martin was both performing and teaching professional open-classes at Danceworks in central London. Martin has lectured on numerous occasions, choreographed, achieved honours in his teaching qualifications and specialises in Classical Ballet, Pas De Deux, Repertoire and Coaching.