English National Ballet promotions and joiners for the 2023/2024 season

Aaron S Watkin, Artistic Director Designate of English National Ballet today announced promotions within the Company together with joiners for the 2023/2024 season.

Promotions

The following promotions have been made in the Company:

Aitor Arrieta and Emma Hawes have been promoted to Lead Principal.

Julia Conway is promoted to First Soloist.

Lorenzo Trossello is promoted to Soloist.

Ivana Bueno, Henry Dowden, Noam Durand, Rentaro Nakaaki and Victor Prigent are promoted to Junior Soloist.

Alice Bellini, Georgia Bould, Eireen Evrard, Giorgio Garrett, Minju Kang, Adriana Lizardi and Eric Snyder are promoted to First Artist.

Breanna Foad is promoted to 8th Year Artist of the Company.

Joiners

Currently with Semperoper Ballett Dresden, Principal Sangeun Lee and First Soloist Gareth Haw join English National Ballet this week as Lead Principal and First Soloist respectively.

Also joining from Semperoper Ballett Dresden is Anna Nevzorova alongside Ukrainian dancer and former Coryphée of the Mariinsky Ballet Vsevolod Maievskyi, as Junior Soloists at the start of the season.

From Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Edvinas Jakonis joins as First Artist.

Guests and repetiteurs

Making a welcome return to English National Ballet as Guest Artist is former Principal, Laurretta Summerscales, who will perform with the Company in Nutcracker at the London Coliseum this winter and Swan Lake in-the-round at the Royal Albert Hall in June. Summerscales is currently Principal Dancer with Bavarian State Ballet in Munich.

Joining the ballet staff team as Ballet Master is Carmen Piqueras from Birmingham Royal Ballet. As previously announced Cynthia Harvey, joins as Associate Guest Repetiteur working across the season, and Alessandra Ferri and Alejandro Parente join as Guest Repetiteurs.

Joining as Creative Director of ENBYouthCo is dance artist Carolyn Bolton, currently lecturer at London Contemporary Dance School and ballet instructor for Trinity Laban's Centre for Advanced Training.

Leavers

As previously announced, after nine years with the Company, First Artist Sarah Kundi leaves to take up a position at The Royal Ballet School.

Also leaving at the end of the season are Artists of the Company Paige Bestington, Noah Benzie-Drayton, Poppy Frankel, Lulu Toner, Daisy Wales, and Oscar Ward.

Soloist Rina Kanehara and Artists of the Company Amber Hunt, Jade Longley and Alejandro Moreno left the Company mid-season.

Ballet Mistress Anu Sistonen also leaves the Company at the end of the season.

English National Ballet's Board of Trustees

English National Ballet has also announced that Sir Roger Carr will step down as Chair by the end of 2023. Sir Roger joined as Chair of the Board of Trustees in 2018, succeeding the late Justin Bickle. The search for a new Chair is underway and the Company expects to announce Sir Roger's successor later this year.

Sir Roger said,

It has been a great privilege to serve as Chair of English National Ballet's Board of Trustees for the past five years. I am proud to have overseen the Company's move into its world class, purpose-built facilities in Canning Town, the refreshment of a strong board, and the successful navigation of the impact of the pandemic. As I near the end of my second term and English National Ballet enters a new chapter with the arrival of a new artistic director, I felt the time was right for the Executive team to build a long-term future in partnership with a new Chair, and collectively realise Aaron's artistic vision for the Company.

English National Ballet's 2023/2024 season, the first programmed by new Artistic Director Aaron S Watkin, begins with Our Voices, a new triple bill showcasing the vast possibilities of ballet, at Sadler's Wells in September followed by a UK tour of Akram Khan's Giselle and the Nutcracker.

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.