English National Ballet announces promotions and new company members

Tamara Rojo, Artistic Director of English National Ballet, has today announced promotions within the Company and new joiners (and leavers) for the 2022/2023 Season.

Promotions

The following promotions have been made within the Company:

As announced earlier this year, Shiori Kase has been promoted to Lead Principal and Aitor Arrieta and Emma Hawes have been promoted to Principal.

Daniel McCormick has been promoted to First Soloist.

Precious Adams, Julia Conway, Fernando Carratalá Coloma and Erik Woolhouse have been promoted to Soloist.

Emily Suzuki and Francesca Velicu have been promoted to Junior Soloist.

Matthew Astley, Rebecca Blenkinsop, Ivana Bueno, Noam Durand, Miguel Angel Maidana, Rentaro Nakaaki, Victor Prigent, Angela Wood and Rhys Antoni Yeomans have been promoted to First Artist.

Eireen Evrard has been promoted to 8th Year Artist.

Eric Snyder has been promoted to 5th Year Artist.

Joiners

Haruhi Otani joined as Soloist mid-Season.

Lorenzo Trossello joins as Junior Soloist from Northern Ballet.

Thiago Pereira joins as Artist of the Company, alongside Paige Bestington, Hamish Longley, Jose Menchon, Archie Sullivan, Daisy Wales, Oscar Ward and Lulu Welford, who join having danced with English National Ballet during the 2021/2022 Season. 

Anu Sistonen joined English National Ballet’s Artistic Team as Ballet Mistress mid-Season.

Leavers

As previously announced, Lead Principals Joseph Caley, Jeffrey Cirio and Isaac Hernández leave English National Ballet at the end of the 2021/2022 Season.

Caley joined English National Ballet in August 2017 and was promoted to Lead Principal that December. He has danced roles including the Man in Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth, Prince Désiré in MacMillan’s The Sleeping Beauty and Conrad in Le Corsaire. Caley will join The Australian Ballet.

Having previously appeared with the Company as a Guest Artist in Swan Lake, Hernández joined English National Ballet as Lead Principal in 2015. He has performed roles including Des Grieux in Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, Prince Guillaume in Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella, and John de Bryan in Tamara Rojo’s Raymonda. Hernández leaves to join San Francisco Ballet.

Cirio joined English National Ballet in 2018 having performed as a Guest Artist with the Company in 2017. He has performed roles including Hilarion in Akram Khan’s Giselle, Ali and Conrad in Le Corsaire and recently, had the lead role in new ballet, Creature, created on him by Akram Khan. Cirio leaves to return to Boston Ballet.

Junior Soloist, Anjuli Hudson, retired from the stage mid-season having danced with English National Ballet for nearly 15 years.

ENB Artist Pedro Lapetra retires at the end of the 2021/22 season, having danced with English National Ballet for 19 years.

Gramilano( Editor )

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.