{"id":52045,"date":"2020-09-22T16:28:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T16:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/?p=52045"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:33:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:33:40","slug":"boston-ballet-announces-2020-2021-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/boston-ballet-announces-2020-2021-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"BOSTON BALLET ANNOUNCES 2020\u20132021 ROSTER"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen announces the 2020\u20132021 season roster. A total of 60 dancers make up the Company roster, with 52 in the main company and 8 in Boston Ballet II (BBII), Boston Ballet\u2019s second company. Today marks the first official workday for the Company and BBII since March performances and the remainder of the 2019\u20132020 season were cancelled due to the pandemic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSince March, we have worked vigorously with medical teams to develop plans to bring dancers back to the studios safely, and eventually to performances onstage. With specific, cautious, and highly monitored protocols in place, I am pleased to welcome this diverse group of creative and resilient dancers to Boston Ballet this year,\u201d said Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. \u201cI look forward to sharing their talents with our audiences.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Twelve nationalities are represented this season, with dancers hailing from Armenia, Australia, Brazil, China, England, France, Georgia, Ireland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, and the United States. BBII alumni comprise 36 percent of the Company, and 25 percent are Boston Ballet School alumni. <\/span><\/p>\n

Boston Ballet welcomes two new dancers to the Company including Gear\u00f3id Solan (Dublin, Ireland) and Ao Wang (Beijing, China) as artists of the Company. Joining the Company as artists from BBII are Molly Novak (Santa Monica, California) and Nations Wilkes-Davis (Columbia, South Carolina). Nissinen also previously announced the following promotions: Tigran Mkrtchyan (Yerevan, Armenia) was promoted to principal dancer, Chisako Oga (Carlsbad, California) was promoted to soloist, and Soo-bin Lee (Seoul, South Korea), Sun Woo Lee (Seoul, South Korea), and Haley Schwan (Dearborn, Michigan) were promoted to second soloist. <\/span><\/p>\n

Five new dancers join BBII: Aviva Gelfer-M\u00fcndl (Tustin, California), Brooks Landegger (New York, New York), Gabriel Lorena (S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil), Alainah Grace Reidy (Covington, Louisiana), and Leighton Taylor (Charlotte, North Carolina). <\/span><\/p>\n

NEW COMPANY DANCERS <\/span><\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

Gear\u00f3id Solan<\/span><\/b> of Dublin, Ireland, joins as an artist of the Company. Solan began his ballet training at Irish National Youth Ballet. At age 15, he left Ireland to study at the Royal Ballet School in London. After graduating, he moved to Switzerland to dance with Ballett Z\u00fcrich under the directorship of Christian Spuck. <\/span><\/p>\n

Ao Wang<\/span><\/b> of Beijing, China, joins as an artist of the Company. She began her training in 2008 at the Liaoning Ballet Academy of China. In 2014, she attended The Washington School of Ballet, under the direction of Kee Juan Han, on full scholarship. She later joined The Washington Ballet Studio Company. In 2016, Wang joined Miami City Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet. In 2012, Wang won the gold medal at the Osaka International Ballet Competition and received a bronze medal at The Taolibei Competition in China. She earned a bronze medal at the Seoul International Dance Competition in 2013. <\/span><\/p>\n

BOSTON BALLET II <\/span><\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

Aviva Gelfer-M\u00fcndl<\/span><\/b> of Tustin, California, joins as a member of Boston Ballet II. She began her ballet training at age 10 in Southern California. At 12, she won the gold medal in the Women\u2019s Junior division at the Youth America Grand Prix New York City Finals, which offered her an opportunity to study on full scholarship at Canada\u2019s National Ballet School. In 2018, Gelfer-M\u00fcndl was the only American to win a prize at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition, enabling her to study on full scholarship at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Later that year, she won the Grand Prize in the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards and received 2nd Prize at the VII Vaganova Prix International Ballet Competition. While at the Academy, Gelfer-M\u00fcndl performed soloist roles on tours to Greece, Japan, and Russia. In 2020, she graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy under professor Ludmila Kovaleva. <\/span><\/p>\n

Brooks Landegger<\/span><\/b> of New York, New York, joins as a member of Boston Ballet II. He began his training at the School of American Ballet in 2008, studying with Arch Higgins, Andrei Kramarevsky, and Peter Frame. He performed nearly every role in the children\u2019s repertory with the New York City Ballet, including the role of Fritz for the 2011 nationally broadcast production of The Nutcracker<\/i>. He performed the title role in the touring production of Billy Elliot and won an Independent Reviewers of New England Award for Outstanding Promise. In January 2020, Landegger joined Boston Ballet School\u2019s Pre-Professional Program under Margaret Tracey and Peter Stark. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gabriel Lorena<\/span><\/b> of S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, joins as a member of Boston Ballet II. He started his ballet training at the Municipal Theater of S\u00e3o Paulo at age 13. In 2016, he received a full scholarship to train as a pre-professional student at Miami City Ballet School under the direction of Arantxa Ochoa. In 2019, he joined Sarasota Ballet as an apprentice. He has choreographed works for students at Miami City Ballet School and Sarasota Ballet. <\/span><\/p>\n

Alainah Grace Reidy<\/span><\/b> of Covington, Louisiana, joins as a member of Boston Ballet II. She began her training at Ballet Apetrei in Mandeville, Louisiana under the direction of Kelly and Constantine Apetrei. She continued her studies with New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, with Karl Condon, and New Orleans Ballet Theater, with Gregory and Marjorie Schramel. In 2017, Reidy joined Boston Ballet School\u2019s Pre-Professional program and later joined Boston Ballet School\u2019s trainee program in 2019. \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Leighton Taylor<\/span><\/b> of Charlotte, North Carolina, joins as a member of Boston Ballet II. He began his ballet training at Charlotte Ballet Academy. He continued his training at the International Ballet Academy before joining Boston Ballet School as a trainee. <\/span><\/p>\n

For full biographies, please visit bostonballet.org<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen announces the 2020\u20132021 season roster. A total of 60 dancers make up the Company roster, with 52 in the main company and 8 in Boston Ballet II (BBII), Boston Ballet\u2019s second company. Today marks the first official workday for the Company and BBII since March performances and the remainder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":52046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52047,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045\/revisions\/52047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}