Meet the 24 graduating Royal Ballet School students – 100% leave with contracts
All 24 of the pre-professional students at The Royal Ballet School [meet them below] have won contracts for the upcoming season which will take them to Canada and many US cities, to Finland, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as four who will go to the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and six with The Royal Ballet.
Sunday afternoon sees the school’s Summer Performance on the main stage of The Royal Opera House – the final performance with the school for the 24 graduates. They will perform the Dream Scene from Carlos Acosta‘s Don Quixote; Konservatoriet, August Bournonville’s vaudeville work for the Royal Danish Ballet; Bold by Goyo Montero created with students from 24 ballet schools around the world at this year’s Prix de Lausanne; a special creation from choreographer and dance filmmaker, Morgann Runacre-Temple; Kenneth MacMillan‘s The Four Seasons; excerpts from Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour; Jiří Kylián’s Sechs Tänze; and the pas de deux from Frederick Ashton‘s The Two Pigeons.
Jann Parry will review the performance for Gramilano.
Fast Blue
The Four Seasons
Don Quixote
Konservatoriet
Within the Golden Hour
Sechs Tänze
The Two Pigeons
Graduate contracts 2023
The Pre-professional Year students of 2023 have secured the following contracts:
Ariana Allen
Birmingham Royal Ballet/BRB2
Bethany Bartlett
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Guillem Cabrera Espinach
Joffrey Studio Company
George Edwards
Finnish National Ballet Youth Company
Liya Fan
The National Ballet of Canada
Sierra Glasheen
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Theo Greenfield
Joffrey Studio Company
Seung Hee Han
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Tom Hazelby
Birmingham Royal Ballet/BRB2
Chaeyeon Kang
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
Taeryeong Kim
Norwegian National Ballet 2
Alexander Larsson
The Royal Danish Ballet
Caspar Lench
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Milda Luckute
Semperoper Ballett Dresden
Sasha Manuel
Birmingham Royal Ballet/BRB2
Kaito Matsuoka
Houston Ballet II
Austen McDonald
Boston Ballet II
Meg Newton
Orlando Ballet II
Nikolás San Gil Muñoz
National Ballet Brno
Alfie Shacklock
Birmingham Royal Ballet/BRB2
Isabella Shaker
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Blake Smith
The Royal Ballet Aud Jebsen Young Dancers Programme
Max Steele
Hungarian National Ballet
Vincent Vivet
Dutch National Ballet Junior Company
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
All beautiful new balletdancers! Good luck to all of you!
An amazingly poised and lovely group. It must be such a wonderful feeling to move into their first ballets…