Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, has announced that Principal Dancer Jurgita Dronina will become a Lead Principal Dancer with English National Ballet next season.
Dronina will remain with The National Ballet of Canada as Principal Dancer and will be featured in The Winter's Tale, which opens the 2017/18 season, as well as The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
She said,
I am very excited to have this unique opportunity to be part of two incredible companies this season: English National Ballet in London and The National Ballet of Canada in Toronto.
I consider myself very lucky to be able to work for two inspiring women, Tamara Rojo and Karen Kain, who have extraordinary visions for the future of their companies. I feel honoured to be a part of this.
Dronina will dance the leads in ENB productions including Giselle in Belfast, Coppélia on tour to Japan, and Romeo and Juliet in London in August 2017. Further performances for English National Ballet's 2017/18 season will be announced shortly.
Jurgita Dronina, who joined the National Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 2015, made her debut as Blanche DuBois in John Neumeier's A Streetcar Named Desire and in Wayne McGregor's Genus in the company's 2016/17 season. Her repertoire with the National Ballet also includes Cinderella, Giselle, La Sylphide, Onegin, Tarantella, The Four Temperaments, Le Petit Prince and Pinocchio.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
