The Royal Ballet announce promotions, leavers and joiners for the 2024/25 Season
By Ashley Woodfield, Head of Ballet Press
Friday 28 June 2024
Director of The Royal Ballet Kevin O’Hare has announced promotions, joiners and leavers for The Royal Ballet’s 2024/25 Season.
Kevin O’Hare says, ‘It has been immensely rewarding to watch the dancers display their extraordinary artistry and versatility on stage during the 2023/24 Season. Each artist makes a fantastic contribution to the Company’s artistic life and I am pleased to thank them all and detail the changes for next Season.’
Promotions
The following promotions have been made:
- Calvin Richardson and Joseph Sissens are promoted to Principal.
- Annette Buvoli, Leticia Dias, Sae Maeda, Mariko Sasaki, Lukas B. Brændsrød, Leo Dixon and Joonhyuk Jun are promoted to First Soloist.
- Sophie Allnatt, Chisato Katsura, Liam Boswell, Daichi Ikarashi, Joshua Junker and Francisco Serrano are promoted to Soloist.
- Madison Bailey, Viola Pantuso, Sumina Sasaki, Marianna Tsembenhoi and Brayden Gallucci are promoted to First Artist.
The Aud Jebsen Young Dancers
The Aud Jebsen Young Dancer programme was established in 2014 and provides recently graduated dancers a year’s contract to be nurtured and perform alongside the corps de ballet of The Royal Ballet. The Company is indebted to the most generous philanthropic support of Aud Jebsen for this life changing opportunity for graduates of The Royal Ballet School. By the beginning of the 2024/25 Season, 61 contracts will have been made available for dancers at the first stage of their careers since the programme’s inception.
- From the 2023/24 Season, Bethany Bartlett, Sierra Glasheen, Isabella Shaker, Caspar Lench and Blake Smith become Artists of the Company.
- For the 2024/25 Season, six graduates from The Royal Ballet School join the Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme: Francesca Lloyd, Katie Robertson, Rebecca Myles Stewart, Ravi Connier-Watson, Emile Gooding and Alejandro Muñoz.
Joiners
Airi Kobayashi from the Deparc Ballet School in Japan joins as the Prix de Lausanne dancer for the 2024/25 Season.
Leavers
As previously announced, Principal dancer Alexander Campbell left The Royal Ballet earlier this year to take up a new role as Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Dance.
After 11 years with The Royal Ballet, and with the last year spent as a guest dancer in Norway, Soloist Gina Storm Jensen will now become a permanent member of The Norwegian National Ballet.
Soloist David Yudes also departs the Company after 10 years to become the director of the Escola de Dansa Marisa Yudes in Barcelona.
Artist Stanislaw Węgrzyn leaves The Royal Ballet to take up a soloist contract at the Semperoper Dresden.
Seunghee Han from the 2023/24 Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme leaves to join the National Ballet of Canada RBC Apprentice Programme.
The Company’s current Prix de Lausanne dancer, Julie-Ann Joyner, joins Norwegian National Ballet 2.
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