TAMARA ROJO

A Principal Ballerina with the Royal Ballet – Covent Garden since 2000, who has received international acclaim for her outstanding technique, captivating acting skills, and brilliant artistry in a wide spectrum of classical and contemporary roles.

A Master of Scenic Arts and Bachelor of Dance graduate from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, she first trained at Victor Ullate’ s School and then with David Howard, Renato Paroni, Alexander Agadzhanov, and Loipa Araujo.

While training with Victor Ullate, Tamara danced with the Ballet de la Comunidad de Madrid in an extensive repertoire that embodied her Spanish roots and challenged her amazing classical technique. She also performed many works specially choreographed for her by Mr. Ullate. In 1994, she dazzled the ballet world by winning both a Gold Medal at the Paris International Dance Competition, and a Special Jury Award unanimously given by a judging panel whose members included Natalia Makarova, Vladimir Vassiliev, and Galina Samsova. Tamara left her native Spain in 1996 when she was invited by Ms. Samsova to join the Scottish National Ballet. With SNB, Tamara danced the principal roles in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide, and Cranko’ s Romeo and Juliet. After dancing with the SNB, she joined the English National Ballet in 1997, and immediately began dancing the full range of principal roles for the company, including Swan Lake, Paquita, Coppelia, Glen Tetley’s The Sphinx and Voluntaries, and Michael Corder’s Cinderella. ENB Artistic Director Derek Deane also created the roles of Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) and Clara (The Nutcracker) for Tamara. Her performances as Clara broke attendance records at the London Coliseum and, in 1997, the London Times named Tamara “Dance Revelation of the Year.” In 2000, Sir Anthony Dowell asked Tamara to dance Giselle with the Royal Ballet as a guest artist. Shortly after her Covent Garden debut (well-received by both critics and audience), Sir Anthony invited Tamara to join the Royal Ballet as a principal dancer.

Tamara has been repeatedly recognised for her artistic excellence. Her awards include Spain’s two highest honours – The Prince of Asturias Arts Award (2005) and the Spanish Gold Medal of Fine Arts (2002), Benois de la danse 2008, Medalla Internacional de las Artes de la Comunidad de Madrid 2008, Villa de Madrid 2007, Leonide Massine’s “Premio al Valore” (2004), London’s Critics’ Circle Dance Award (2002), Italian Critics’ Award (1996), and Paris International Dance Competition’ s Gold Medal and Special Jury Award (1994).

Tamara has starred in principal roles with The Kirov Ballet, La Scala Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Ballet Deustsche Opera Berlin, National Ballet of China, Zurich Ballet, Lithuanian Ballet, and Balletto Argentino. She has also performed at the prestigious World Ballet Festival in Tokyo (2003 and 2006) and many international Galas throughout Europe and the Americas. In 2005, first in Bilbao and then in Madrid, Tamara starred in the world premiere of Snow White (Blanca Nieves), created for her by choreographer Ricardo Cué with original musical score by famed Spanish composer and conductor Emilio Aragón. In late 2007, Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of Blanca Nieves.

Leanne Benjamin

Leanne Benjamin is a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet in London.
Born in Rockhampton, Australia in 1964, she trained at the Royal Ballet School and won the Adeline Genée Gold Medal and Prix de Lausanne. She joined the Company in 1992 becoming a Principal by the spring of that Season. She has also been a Principal with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Deutsche Opera Ballet and danced with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company at New York City Center in 2008

Repertory

Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Giselle, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Nikiya, Kitri, Swanilda, The Firebird, Cinderella, Lise, Titania, Manon, Anastasia, (Ashton and MacMillan), Mitzi Caspar and Mary Vetsera in Mayerling, Irina, The Girl in The Invitation, The Judas Tree, Song of the Earth, Gloria, Requiem, Rhapsody, Elite Syncopations, Les Biches, Symphony in C, Apollo, Danses Concertantes, Etudes, Brünnhilde in Béjart's Ring, Carmen, Forsythe's Herman Schmerman and Ashton's The Leaves Are Fading.
She has created roles in Bintley's Metamorphosis, The Snow Queen and Earth as part of Homage to The Queen, Bruce's Symphony in Three Movements and in Mr. Worldly Wise, Two-Part Invention, When We Stop Talking, Masquerade and most recently Wayne McGregor's Qualia, Robert Garland's Spring Rites, Alastair Marriott's Tanglewood, Liam Scarlett's Despite and Wheeldon's DGV. She was awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Year's Honours

She is married to Tobias Round, manager of the Donmar Warehouse, and has a son, Thomas, born in the summer of 2003.

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Alina Cojocaru

Alina Cojocaru

Alina Cojocaru was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. She has one sister. From a young age she studied gymnastics. Later she began ballet classes, despite never having seen a live ballet.

At the age of 7 or 8 she began gymnastic classes, progressing at the age of 9 to a Bucharest ballet school which acted as a feeder for the Romanian State Ballet school. Later the same year she took and passed the entrance exam for the school and a few months later was chosen (with 8 other Romanian students) by the director of the Kiev Ballet school to take part in a student exchange.
She left her family to train at the school, and did not speak any Russian. Initially, Cojocaru and the other Romanian students were taught separately, before being integrated with the other students in the third year.
The ballet school gave a public performance every six months and it was in one of these performances that Cojocaru made her debut, dancing the role of Amor in Don Quixote.
In January 1997, aged 16, she competed in the Prix de Lausanne, a prestigious international ballet competition. She won the gold medal, winning a six month scholarship to train at the Royal Ballet School in London. She moved to London that same year to commence her training, but did not speak any English

After completing her six months training with the Royal Ballet School, Cojocaru was offered a contract to join The Royal Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet. She was also offered a contract to join the Kiev Ballet as Principal. She subsequently joined Kiev Ballet in November 1998, believing she would gain greater experience as a Principal dancer. She stayed for one season, dancing a variety of roles.
Whilst dancing with Kiev Ballet, Cojocaru re-applied to the Royal Ballet in London, but was only invited to audition for the corps de ballet. She attended an audition for the company whilst on leave from Kiev Ballet and was offered a contract. Doubtful of development opportunities elsewhere, she accepted the contract and joined the company in November 1999. She was then promoted to Principal at the Royal Ballet in London in 2001.
Cojocaru's early appearances with the company included performing in the opening gala for the refurbished Royal Opera House, plus appearances with the corps de ballet in the Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère, as a snowflake in The Nutcracker and as a doll in Coppélia.
In 2008, during rehearsal, Alina Cojocaru suffered a whiplash injury that could have ended her career. But after surgery, she has returned to dancing
Cojocaru's performance as Clara in Peter Wright's Royal Ballet production of The Nutcracker was taped and first telecast in the U.S. in 2001. It is available on DVD. Her performance as Aurora in the Royal Ballet's new production of The Sleeping Beauty has not been telecast in the U.S. yet, but has become available on DVD.
Her performance as Giselle, alongside Johan Kobborg (her partner in life as well as onstage) as Albrecht was recorded in 2006 and aired in England on Boxing Day. It was released on DVD the following year.



Miyako Yoshida

Miyako Yoshida

Miyako Yoshida (吉田都, born in 1965-) is a Japanese ballet dancer. She was a Principal Guest Artist of The Royal Ballet as well as a Principal dancer in K-ballet, Japan

Born and trained in Tokyo, Yoshida won the Prix de Lausanne in 1983 and joined Royal Ballet School in England. In 1984, she joined then Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, the present Birmingham Royal Ballet and was promoted to principal in 1988. In following year, she was awarded the Global Award and the Arts Encouragement Prize for Artists of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.
In 1995, Yoshida joined The Royal Ballet as principal dancer and was known for her partnership with such as Tetsuya Kumakawa, and Irek Mukhamedov. She was also appointed UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2001. In 2004, she married Takashi Endo, a Japanese football agent.
In 2006, she joined K-ballet while she continued dancing with The Royal Ballet, before winning the Best Female Dancer in National Dance Awards. In 2007, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her services to dance. In 2010 she retired from the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.

Odette/Odile Swan Lake, Aurora, Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Lise, Giselle (Giselle), Swanilda (Coppélia), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Kitri (Don Quixote), Cinderella, Ondine, Chloë, Titania, Tchaikovsky pas de deux, Le Corsaire pas de deux, Homage to The Queen and leading roles in Prince of the Pagodas, Symphonic Variations, Elite Syncopations, Snow Queen, Galanteries, Fin du jour, Symphony in C, Birthday Offering, The Firebird, Scènes de ballet, Les Rendezvous and Rhapsody.
2006 National Dance Awards - Best female dancer^[5]

The Royal Ballet

In 1926, the Irish-born dancer Ninette de valois founded the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls. Her intention was to form a repertory ballet company and school, leading her to collaborate with the English theatrical producer and theatre owner Lilian Baylis. Baylis owned the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells theatres and in 1925 she engaged de Valois to stage dance performances at both venues.
Sadler's Wells reopened in 1931 and the Vic-Wells Ballet and Vic-Wells Ballet School were established in premises at the theatre. These would become the predecessors of today's Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. Prior to her return to Britain, Ninette de Valois had been a member of the Ballets Russes, one of the most renowned and influential ballet companies of the 20th century. The company disbanded in 1929 following the death of its founder Serge Diaghilev. When de Valois formed the Vic-Wells Ballet, she employed some of the company's former stars, including Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, who joined as Principal dancers, and Tamara Karsavina who worked with the company as an advisor. The Founder Musical Director was the conductor and composer Constant Lambert who had considerable artistic as well as musical influence over the early years of the company.
After losing the link with the Old Vic theatre, in 1939 the company was renamed Sadler's Wells Ballet and the school became Sadler's Wells Ballet School.Both continued at Sadler's Wells theatre until 1946, when the company was invited to become the resident ballet company of the newly re-opened Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, under the direction of David Webster. The company relocated to the opera house the same year in 1946, with their first production at the venue being Sleeping Beauty.
Following the relocation of the company, the school moved to its own premises in 1947. A sister company was established to continue performances at Sadler's Wells, called Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, under the direction of John Field. In 1955, the sister company temporarily lost its link with Sadler's Wells and returned to the Royal Opera House as a touring unit of the main company.
In 1956, a Royal Charter was granted for both companies and the school: they were subsequently renamed the Royal Ballet, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School.
The Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet returned to Sadler's Wells theatre in 1970, whilst continuing to tour the country, however in 1987, the company was invited to be come the resident ballet company at the Birmingham Hippodrome. It relocated to Birmingham in 1990, being renamed Birmingham Royal Ballet and it ceased to be part of the Royal Ballet in 1997 when it was made independent of the Royal Opera House, with Sir Peter Wright as Artistic Director. Birmingham Royal Ballet retains close relationships with both the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School, although it now has its own associate ballet school, Elmhurst School for Dance.
In 1964 the Royal Ballet established "Ballet for All" under the direction of Peter Brinson. Between 1964 and 1979 "Ballet for All" toured throughout the country presenting around 150 performances per year and reaching around 70,000 people each year. In 1976 the Royal Opera House established its schools matinee programme.
Today, the Royal Ballet remains the resident ballet company at the Royal Opera House, conducting its own tours internationally and it continues to be the parent company of the Royal Ballet School, which is now based at White Lodge, Richmond Park and premises in Floral Street which are adjacent to and have direct access to the Royal Opera House.
The Royal Ballet is one of the few ballet companies in the world to have staged performances by three dancers considered to be Prima Ballerinas Assoluta, the two 20th-century dancers having studied at the Royal Ballet School. The first was Dame Alicia Markova who, having been mentored by Ninette de Valois as a member of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, was invited to become one of the founder dancers of the Royal Ballet. She was designated the company's first Prima Ballerina, and was later recognised as a Prima Ballerina Assoluta. Margot Fonteyn spent her entire career dancing with the company and was appointed Prima Ballerina Assoluta by Queen Elizabeth II. Alessandra Ferri began her career with the Royal Ballet; she was later appointed Prima Ballerina Assoluta of La Scala Theatre Ballet in Milan. The Royal Ballet has staged performances by Roberto Bolle, one of the only male dancers to hold the male equivalent of the title, who was appointed an Etoile (Star) of La Scala Theatre Ballet. He continues to be a Principal Guest Artist with the Royal Ballet

Thanks my wonderful sister

A big thank you going out to my sister who recently gave me a wonderful gift, she got me a ticket for The Nutcracker and it will be performed by The Northern Ballet Company, really looking forward to that :-)
I have recently learned that Scottish Ballet is coming to Newcastle in February, fantastic! I really enjoy Scottish ballet and the fact they are coming to my home town makes it even better, it is a bit tedious travelling to Scotland to see them but I will be there in August to see them perform Song of the Earth by Kenneth MacMillan and some new work by Jorma elo.
I don't know if anyone reading this (if anybody is reading this :-)) got the chance to see Moscow Ballet perform earlier this year, I would like your opinion of them, me personally I thought they were fantastic, I was very lucky that I got to see them perform Swan Lake and Coppelia within a week of each other, they were really nice people too and I got autographs of almost the entire company.
well I will end this post now but I would like to hear any body's opinion about ballet or if you are attending any ballets that you think I should know about, don't hesitate to tell me.
Have a wonderful weekend :-)

Marianela Nuñez

 Marianela was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She started dance lessons at the age of three and at eight joined the Instituto Superior de Arte of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where she studied until she was invited to join the corps de ballet of the Company at the age of 14. She was selected to take part in a tour of Argentina as a Soloist with the Ballet Clasico de la Habama, Cuba. In 1997 Maximiliano Guerra chose her as his partner to dance with him in Uruguay, Spain, Italy and at the World Ballet Festival of Japan. She was then invited to tour with the ballet company of Teatro Colón in Europe and the US as a guest ballerina.

In September 1997 she joined the Graduate Course at The Royal Ballet School and at the end of the year danced the leading female role in Kenneth MacMillan’s Soirée Musicale at Dame Ninette de Valois’ 100th Birthday Gala as well as the title role in Raymonda Act III and the Third Shadow solo in La Bayadère at the School’s performances. She joined The Royal Ballet at the start of the 1998/99 Season, aged 16 and was promoted to First Soloist in 2001 and made a Principal in September 2002.

Since joining The Royal Ballet Marianela has performed Kenneth MacMillan’s Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, the second movement pas de deux in Concerto, Marie Larisch in Mayerling, Elite Syncopations and Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon.

Her Frederick Ashton repertoire includes the title roles in Cinderella and Sylvia, for which she was one of three ballerinas selected to recreate the role when the production was brought back into The Royal Ballet’s repertory in 2004, Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee, Monotones I, the lead couple in Les Rendevous and Isabel Fritton in Enigma Variations.

Marianela’s Balanchine repertory includes the 1st pas de trios in Agon, Polyhimnia in Apollo, the Tchaikovsky pas de deux, the Diamonds pas de deux in Jewels, the Waltz girl in Serenade, the lead couple in the 2nd movement of Symphony in C, the lead female role in Tzigane and Choleric in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments.

She has also danced the Black Queen in Checkmate, the title role and Queen of the Willies in Peter Wrights Giselle and The Sugar Plum Fairy in his production of The Nutcracker, Odette/Odile in Anthony Dowell’s production of Swan Lake, Kitri in Nureyev’s production of Don Quixote, Olga in John Cranko’s Onegin, the lead couple in Stephen Baynes’ Beyond Bach, Anthony Tudor’s The Leaves are Fading, Nikiya and Gamzatti in Natalia Makova’s production of La Bayadere, Aurora and the Lilac Fairy in Monica Mason and Christopher Wheeldon’s production of The Sleeping Beauty, Nacho Duato’s Por Vos Muero, William Forsythe’s In the middle, somewhat elevated, Jiří Kylián’s Sinfonietta, the Queen of Fire in Christopher Wheeldon’s Fire Variation in Homage to the Queen, the solo girl in Alastair Marriott’s Tanglewood, Glen Tetly’s Voluntaries and the title role in Sphinx, Johan Kobborg’s production of Napoli Divertissments, ‘Scherzo’ in Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering and the pas de deux in his Serenade, the 1st Song Couple in Michael Corder’s L’Invitation au voyage and Christopher Wheeldon’s Electric Counterpoint.

Marianela has created principal roles in Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV (Danse à grande vitesse) (2006), Wayne McGregor’s Infra (2008) and Limen (2009) and Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows (2010).

Her television appearances include the BBC Broadcast of Daphnis and Chloë and La Fille mal gardée (BBC2, Feb 2005). And her performances as Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Queen of the Willies in Giselle, the Lilac Fairy in the The Sleeping Beauty and 2nd movement pas de deux in Concerto have been released on DVD.

In 2006 Marianela won Best Female Dancer at the Critics Circle Dance awards and she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2007. In 2010 she was awarded with the coveted Argentinean Konex prize for best dancer.

Marianela has made several guest appearances in festivals and galas including La Scala, Milan and the World Festival, Japan

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog, I hope in time to create a blog that will cover all aspects of ballet from dancers, terms within ballet and review each different ballet and ballet company.