Ten seasons is a long time in a ballet company's life, especially if you consider how short a dancer's career actually is. In the course of the past ten years, the Polish National Ballet has seen many dancers taking a break from the stage, retiring, or leaving to try their luck with other companies. They were replaced by international artists selected through a rigorous audition process. This year fourteen new dancers join us for the 2018/19 season.
Former demi-soloist with the National Theatre Brno, the Czech Republic, Gregor Giselbrecht from Austria becomes the Polish National Ballet's new coryphée. The remainder of the joiners become members of our corps the ballet. Four are graduates of the Warsaw ballet school: Barbara Derleta, Oliwia Górecka, Patrycja Szynkarczuk, and Cezary Wąsik; three hail from France: Eugénie Hecquet, a graduate of John Neumeier's School of the Hamburg Ballett; Manon Kolanowski, who studied dance at the Paris Conservatoire; and Théo Just, who trained at the Zurich Dance Academy. The others are: Spain's Eric Navarrete Monsonis, who also studied in Hamburg; Russia's Iana Chernoritckaia, a graduate of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, St. Petersburg; Ukraine's Andrii Havryliuk, who studied at the Ballet Academy in Munich; Hungary's Demeter Kóbor, a graduate of the Ballet Academy Budapest who has recently danced at the Semperoper Dresden, Britain's Philip Tunstall, who trained ballet at the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, and Italy's Rosa Pierro, who graduated from the Opera School, Vienna, and then briefly danced with the Hungarian National Ballet.
Welcome to all the new dancers! We hope your work with the Polish National Ballet brings you joy and satisfaction. (pch)
Pictured (standing, left to right): Andrii Havryliuk, Gregor Giselbrecht, Théo Just, Demeter Kóbor, Oliwia Górecka, Cezary Wąsik, Patrycja Szynkarczuk, Iana Chernoritckaia, Manon Kolanowski; (below) Eugénie Hecquet, Eric Navarrete Monsonis, Barbara Derleta, and Rosa Pierro. Missing from the photo is Philip Tunstall, who will join us at the beginning of September. Photo by Ewa Krasucka
