Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, announced the 2018/19 season roster which features 69 dancers and 10 RBC Apprentices.
The promotions this season include Skylar Campbell and Francesco Gabriele Frola to Principal Dancer, Jack Bertinshaw to First Soloist and Christopher Gerty, Spencer Hack andMiyoko Koyasu to Second Soloist.
Joining the National Ballet this season are Joe Chapman as Second Soloist and Tirion Law and Nicholas Rose as members of the Corps de Ballet.
Promoted to the Corps de Ballet from the RBC Apprentice Programme are Brenna Flaherty, Hannah Galway, Larkin Miller, Teagan Richman–Taylor and Alexander Skinner.
The RBC Apprentice Programme this season features new dancers Jason Ferro, Thomas Leprohon, Genevieve Penn Nabity, Noah Parets, Michael Rinderle, Tene Ward, Jennifer Watembach and Daina Zolty.
After 14 years with the company, First Soloist Robert Stephen departs to join Gauthier Dance in Stuttgart, Germany. First Soloist Dylan Tedaldi, who joined the company in 2009, also departs to dance with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Kibbutz Ga’aton, Israel.
Anniversaries
This season, the company celebrates several significant anniversaries. Principal Dancers Guillaume Côté, Heather Ogden, Piotr Stanczyk, Principal Character Artist Alejandra Perez-Gomez, First Soloist Tanya Howard and Corps de Ballet member Andreea Olteanu all mark their 20th anniversaries with the company and will be celebrated throughout the 2018/19 season.
Dancer Exchange: The National Ballet of Canada and Het Nationale Ballet
The National Ballet and Het Nationale Ballet in The Netherlands have partnered together for a dancer exchange programme. Each company will send a dancer to train and perform with the other, providing the artists a wonderful opportunity for artistic growth, development and stage experience.
The National Ballet’s First Soloist Hannah Fischer will dance with Het Nationale Ballet from January to April 2019 where she will have the opportunity to learn roles in Swan Lake, Giselle and works by Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen and British choreographer David Dawson. In exchange, Het Nationale Ballet Soloist Aya Okumura will dance with the National Ballet from September to November 2018, performing in the North American premiere of John Neumeier’s Anna Karenina, Guillaume Côté’s Being and Nothingness and Frederick Ashton’s The Dream.
The National Ballet’s 2018/19 season will begin with the company’s first-ever tour to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. The company will perform a mixed programme of Paz de la Jolla by Justin Peck, Being and Nothingness by Guillaume Côté and Crystal Pite’s Emergence at the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow (October 15 and 16) and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (October 19) as part of Diana Vishneva’s Context festival.
The National Ballet’s 2018/19 season in Toronto opens with the North American premiere of Anna Karenina choreographed by John Neumeier on November 10, 2018. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s great masterwork, Anna Karenina is the first co-production between the National Ballet, The Hamburg Ballet and The Bolshoi Ballet and is onstage November 10 – 18, 2018 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.