Jessica Xuan and Semyon Velichko have both been promoted to principals at Dutch National Ballet. Director Ted Brandsen announced their promotion this weekend, straight after their performance in Giselle. Jessica and Semyon are partners in this ballet and are dancing the leading roles of Giselle and count Albrecht.
Jessica Xuan is the first dancer who started her career in the Junior Company of Dutch National Ballet and has made it to the highest rank of the company.
Jessica Xuan
The Chinese Jessica Xuan (Beijing) studied dance at Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto and at the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam.
In 2013, she was one of the first dancers of the Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company. In 2014, in the rank of élève, she switched to the Dutch National Ballet, where she joined the corps de ballet a year later. In 2016 she was promoted to coryphée and in 2018 she was appointed grand sujet. In August of this year Jessica was been appointed soloist of the Dutch National Ballet.
Jessica won the Varna International Ballet Competition in July 2018. The biennial ballet competition in Bulgaria, in which 150 dancers from 40 countries take part, is also known as the ‚Olympiad of Ballet‘.
“Her musicality, especially the quality she invested in finishing each phrase, made this a memorable debut while her breathtaking arabesque reminded you of just how beautiful ballet can be.”
(Maggie Foyer, Seeingdance, on Jessica her debut as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty)
Semyon Velichko
The Russian Semyon Velichko studied at the Novosibirsk Ballet College in Russia and danced with the Novosibirsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre.
In 2015 Semyon moved to the Netherlands to join Dutch National Ballet in de rank of soloist.
Semyon danced leading roles in, among others, Giselle, Nutcracker, Coppelia, La Sylphide, La Bayadère and Cinderella and was a guest soloist at various international ballet galas.
“Clean, soft technique (…) ardent and energetic.” (Susan Pond, Dance Europe on Semyon in Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet)
Giselle, in a production by Rachel Beaujean and Ricardo Bustamente, can be seen up until Sunday the 8th of March at Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam.
