Elisa Carrillo Cabrera, long-time principal dancer of the Staatsballett Berlin, will bid farewell to the company after 17 years at the anniversary gala on 7 July 2024. The exceptional artist is the first Latin American dancer to win the three most important ballet prizes in the world and has delighted Berlin audiences in a wide range of roles from classical to contemporary.
Image above: Elisa Carrillo Cabrera and Mikhail Kaniskin in Onegin, photo: Carlos Quezada
On 7 July 2024, Elisa Carrillo Cabrera, long-time principal dancer of the Staatsballett Berlin, will bid farewell to the company after 17 years in the ensemble. As part of the Gala – 20 Years Staatsballett Berlin, she will dance the solo Tué by Marco Goecke and a duet with Giovanni Princic from Caravaggio by Mauro Bigonzetti. The exceptional artist is the first Latin American dancer to win the three most important ballet prizes in the world: the Prix Benois de la Danse, the Soul of Dance Award and the prize of the International Ballet Festival “Dance Open” in St. Petersburg.
Elisa Carrillo Cabrera is now looking forward to a new chapter in her career:
“After 25 years in permanent ensembles – for which I am very grateful to the Stuttgart Ballet and the Staatsballett Berlin – I am now very much looking forward to not only continuing to perform internationally in the coming years, but also to taking care of projects that are very close to my heart: introducing the widest possible sections of the population to dance, promoting young dancers and talent and strengthening cultural exchange through dance.”
Over the course of her career, she has performed numerous solo roles in works by the most important choreographers such as Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, August Bournonville, John Cranko, Michail Fokin, Marius Petipa, Jerome Robbins, Peter Schaufuss and Uwe Scholz. She brought her Stuttgart experience with John Cranko’s pieces to her interpretations of the roles of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet or Tatyana in Onegin. Throughout her time at the Staatsballett Berlin, she danced the role of Myrtha in Patrice Bart’s Giselle and the Lilac Fairy in all three Sleeping Beauty productions. She has worked personally with Patrice Bart, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Marcia Haydée, Vladimir Malakhov, Hans van Manen, Angelin Preljocaj, Heinz Spoerli and Víctor Ullate on choreographies. She has often been involved in creations with choreographers such as Mauro Bigonzetti, David Dawson, Alexander Ekman, Marco Goecke, Douglas Lee, Wayne McGregor, John Neumeier, Alexei Ratmansky, Richard Siegal and Christian Spuck.
Elisa Carrillo Cabrera was born in Texcoco, Mexico, and completed her training at the Escuela Nacional de Danza Clásica in Mexico and as a scholarship holder at the National English Ballet School London. She danced with the Stuttgart Ballet from 1999 and moved to the Staatsballett Berlin as a demi-solo dancer in 2007. Here she became a principal dancer in 2009 and was promoted to principal dancer in 2011 after the title role in Snow White by Angelin Preljocaj. Since then, she has interpreted a broad repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary and has performed internationally in France, Japan, China, the USA, Korea, Italy, Cairo, Switzerland, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Luxembourg.
The Mexican is not only a star on stage. She was honoured with the country’s highest artistic award, the Medal of Fine Arts, for her services to the promotion of the arts in Mexico. She is the artistic co-director of the national dance company and a member of the Unesco International Dance Council. A scholarship programme named after her enables ballet students to spend a year training at renowned schools abroad. Since 2012, she has hosted the “Elisa and Friends” gala and presented a programme with international ballet stars. In March of this year, she led a ballet class for more than 5,000 participants in Mexico City’s central Zócalo square as part of International Women’s Day. In 2024, Forbes Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential women in Mexico.
WHEN?
Sunday, 7. July 2024, 6.00 pm
WHERE?
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Bismarckstraße 35
10627 Berlin
COST?
Tickets: 26 – 136 Euro
