Cory Stearns Promoted to ABT Principal!

Photo by John Grigaitis, taken from Tonya's Blog

Wow! This just in: Cory Stearns from ABT has been promoted to principal!

I loved wacthing him in Romeo & Juliet when I supered, and he's really stood out in other recent works as well. And he's so young! I'm sure they had to promote someone fabulous since the wonderful Jose Carreno will retire this year :/

Congrats Cory!

From the press release:
A native of Long Island, New York, Cory Stearns began his classical training at Seiskaya Ballet with Mme. Valia Seiskaya. At 15, he participated in the Youth America Grand Prix and was offered a full scholarship to The Royal Ballet School in London. During his training, Stearns performed in Madrid, Moscow, Milan and Germany. His repertory included principal roles in Mark Annear's Mendelssohn Concerto, Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto, Kirk Peterson's Eyes That Gently Touch, Robert Hill's Piano Concerto #2 and Barry Moreland's Fearful Symmetries. In March 2004, Stearns appeared with Kylie Minogue in her music video Chocolate. Upon graduating, with honors, from The Royal Ballet School, he received, for the second year, the Dame Ruth Railton Award for excellence in dance.

ABT's 2011 Met Season Rep Announced!

Very exciting! Details here.

Today ABT announced it's repertoire for the 2011 Met Season (aka my favorite time of the year).

Ratmansky and Wheeldon will each have a world premiere, and Millipied will have a U.S. premiere.

Then the season starts with some of my favorites: "Don Q" and "Giselle." Next comes "Lady of the Camellias," which I missed the last time they did it recently. Then comes Freddy Franklin's "Coppelia," Kudelka's "Cinerella" (I think they use supers for this one...yay...), the gorgeous "Swan Lake," and finally "Sleeping Beauty."

Plus Jose Manuel Carreno retires with Swan Lake on June 30. Osipova and Cocojaru are back.

Jose Carreno to Retire

A lot of people saw this coming soon, but it's still sad!

ABT Principal Jose Manuel Carreno will be retiring in August 2011. He will have the necessary fanfare farewell evening at The Met on June 30 during Swan Lake week at ABT.

I always think of Carreno as a true prince - a real artist. Even though he is of the older dancers, his technique is still of the strongest and his presence is so strong onstage. I really liked him in "Kings of the Dance" last spring, and of course seeing him backstage when I super with ABT is always an honor. This year during Romeo & Juliet I was watching act I from the downstage right wing by the stage manager's table, and he came over, marking the arms of all of Romeo's steps and tapping to the beat. I thought it was sweet that he made sure we could all see the stage even though we're just nobody, haha.

He will be missed onstage! Hope he's dancing a lot this season...