Tutu

Promotions and new dancers at Dutch National Ballet

16 July 2019

At the start of next season, Dutch National Ballet is promoting fifteen dancers to higher ranks and welcoming eleven new dancers into the company, six of whom come from the Junior Company. Eight new dancers will be joining Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company.



Promotions

As of 1 August 2019, fifteen dancers will be promoted to a higher rank in the company. The following dancers will be promoted to the rank of soloist: Floor Eimers (the Netherlands), Riho Sakamoto (Japan), Jessica Xuan (China), YuanYuan Zhang (China), Martin ten Kortenaar (Canada) en Sho Yamada (Japan).

Sem Sjouke (the Netherlands) and Joseph Masserelli (United States) will be promoted to Grand Sujet, and Nathan Brhane (the Netherlands), Dario Elia (Italy), Cristiano Principato (Italy) and Salome Leverashvili (Georgia) to Coryphée.

Inés Marroquín (Spain), Fabio Rinieri (Italy) and Michele Esposito (Italy) are rising from the rank of Élève to Corps de Ballet.

New dancers

Eleven new dancers will be joining Dutch National Ballet. Six of them come from Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company: Alexandria Marx (United States), Kira Hilli (Finland), Lore Zonderman (Belgium), Manu Kumar (the Netherlands), Conor Walmsley (Great Britain) and Dingkai Bai (China).



Nina Tonoli (Belgium) will join the company in the rank of soloist, and Arianna Maldini (Italy), Rebecca Storani (Italy), Dustin True (United States) and Jan Špunda (Czech Republic) will be joining the Corps de Ballet



The following eight dancers are new to the Junior Company: Beatriz Kuperus (United States), Leo Hepler (Canada), Philippe Magdelijns (United States), Sebia Plantefève-Castryck (Ethiopia), Claire Tjoe-Fat (the Netherlands), Emma Mardegan (Italy), Davi Ramos (Brazil) and Elisabeth Tonev (Germany).

Farewell

At the end of the current season, we are saying farewell to a number of dancers.

Principal dancer Daniel Camargo is leaving the company to continue his career as a freelancer.

Soloist Emanouela Merdjanova is stopping dancing, following a career of seventeen years with the company. Grand Sujet Anatole Babenko is ending his career after dancing with Dutch National Ballet for thirteen years and Coryphée Pascalle Paerel is stopping dancing following a career of twelve years with the company. Thomas van Damme and Pryscilla Gallo, both members of the corps de ballet, are leaving the company, as are Junior Company dancers Madison Ayton, Amber Ray, Yuka Masumoto and Lorenzo Collatuzzo.

Principal dancer Sasha Mukhamedov is taking leave of absence for a year to dance with San Francisco Ballet in the rank of soloist. And soloist Aya Okumura is taking a year off to dance as a soloist with Staatsballett Berlin.