New Czech National Ballet dancers

The prestigious post of first soloist has been assumed by the gifted Chilean dancer Romina Contreras, a former star of the Ballet de Santiago, where under the celebrated Marcia Haydée she portrayed numerous lead roles of the global repertoire, including Juliet, Tatyana, Manon, Odette/Odile, Aurora and the Lilac Fairy, Cinderella, Carmen, Rosalinde, Raymonda, Giselle, Clara, Kitri, Bianca (John Cranko, Marcia Haydée, Kenneth MacMillan, Roland Petit, Ronald Hynd, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Luis Ortigoza, Jaime Pinto).

A graduate of the Prague Dance Conservatory, Nela Báčová appeared back in 2021 in a performance of Swan Lake at the National Theatre in Prague. The UK’s Rachel Hickey spent several years at the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc. Chile’s Romina Contreras was in 2017 named a first soloist of the Ballet de Santiago, while the Australian dancer Martelle Cho has come to Prague from Oslo, where she was a member of the Norwegian National Ballet’s junior company. Italy’s Giusi D'Angelo worked at the Hungarian National Ballet. Ukraine’s Oleg Ligaj studied in Kyiv and performed, among other venues, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, from where the English dancer Edward Harper has moved to Prague, after completing his training at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. And finally, the Czech National Ballet has been joined by Thiago Neves, a 25-year-old dancer from Brazil, who was formerly a member of the Slovak National Theatre.

We wish the young artists plenty of joy, strength and mettle, good health and enthusiasm!