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Photos by Sofia de Vasconcelos Lourenco featuring characters from The Fairy Doll.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Set to join this year\u2019s illustrious line up Ayfer Zeren and Sara-Maria Barton will co-lead the festivals youth and adult dance master classes. From Istanbul, Ayfer boasts a remarkable career as a ballerina, artistic director and ballet educator. Working with Royal Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and Bolshoi Theatre, she has performed across the world. Alongside Ayfer, Sara Maria Barton is Artistic Director of S-MB Company and has over 30 years of teaching experience as a Classical Ballet Tutor. An international medallist, Sara-Maria has worked with Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, and Scottish Ballet, and has danced across UK, Europe, USA, and China. Both Ayfer and Sara will bring their students to perform in the Festival performances at The MAC Belfast.<\/p>\n
From America, Angela Zielen, Director of The Art Society at Loblolly Acres Delaware will participate in the festival. Angela has danced with the First State Ballet Theatre and is the former Assistant Director of the National Ballet Competition. Joining Angela from USA Stephen Everson will make his second visit to the festival. Trained at Ballet 5:8 School of the Arts, and Project Ballet, and former guest artist with Charleston Ballet Theatre, Stephen has performed in\u202fA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.<\/p>\n
From the Ukraine, dancers Oleksii Kniazkov and Elizavita Gogidze will bring their extensive experience working in professional ballet and will dance a pas de deux (partner dance) from Le Corsaire<\/em>. A classical ballet Elizaveta has danced on stages in Europe, Asia, Canada, Argentina, Dubai, USA and England. A graduate at Kyiv State Ballet School in Ukraine, she was the first soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine. Also from Ukraine, Oleksii Kniazkov is Principal dancer with Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. Awarded the Grand Prix of International Dance in 2018, his many leading roles include Romeo and Juliet, Spartacus, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.<\/p>\n This year five professional artists from Northern Ireland will join the festival, including as a Choreographer Belfast-native Anna McCoy, currently dancing with Semperoper Ballet Dresden, and co-founders of Six Dance Collective, Composer Amelia Clarkson from Donaghadee and Choreographer Ruaidhr\u00ed Maguire, currently working with Ballet Ireland. Dancers Anna Katherine McCoy and Leigh Alderson will perform a world premiere, Zlat\u00fd Mot\u00fdlek <\/em>(meaning Golden Butterfly), together, whilst Rachel Neale will perform a variation from Carmen. Current vocational students and alumni of HPYB\u2019s training programme Georgia Crawford, Amy Crawford, and Lauren McConnell will perform during the festival, alongside former rugby player turned ballet dancer Oscar Hunter.\u00a0\u00a0Ballet Historian Amy Growcott will deliver a lecture on Saturday 2nd<\/sup> August whilst students from the Irish National Youth Ballet, directed by Lindsay Ashe-Browne, will perform a selection of the piece \u2018Eclipse\u2019 choreographed by Zo\u00eb Ashe-Browne.<\/p>\n High Points Youth Ballet, formed in 2011 under the leadership of Rana O\u2019Brien, and its international team of Artistic Director Jake Allison and Creative Director Anna Carapellotti, are spearheading the festival. They will bring together leading dancers from home and across the world. Jake and Anna will deliver ballet technique classes and stage selections from classical repertoire on the High Points Youth Ballet dancers for two shows to be presented in the MAC on 1 and 2 August 2025.<\/p>\n Commenting ahead of Belfast International Ballet Festival, High Points Youth Ballet CEO, Rana O\u2019Brien said: \u201cWe are delighted and excited to return with this event highlighting dance artists and educators from across the world and locally. The festival will feature numerous dancers who will collaborate to create new pieces. The festival will involve young dancers aged 10 and upwards, who will attend master classes at High Points studios and the Crescent Arts Centre studios. They will rehearse and perform 3 shows at the MAC on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 August, to showcase their skills and share their performances with family and friends.”<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTo deliver such quality requires support and investment, and we appreciate the ongoing support from Belfast City Council through the cultural grants scheme,<\/em>\u201d concluded Rana.<\/p>\n Councillor Ian McLaughlin, Chair of Belfast City Council\u2019s City Growth and Regeneration Committee, said: \u201cCouncil is delighted to support High Points Youth Ballet and their hosting of this year\u2019s Belfast International Ballet Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBelfast has a thriving cultural and arts scene and our community plan, Belfast Agenda, recognises culture and creativity as essential to delivering better health and well-being for our citizens.\u00a0 Events like this play a vital role in our cultural strategy, A City Imagining, and provide an opportunity to inspire and nurture our next generation of creative talent in the city.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n During the festival Anna Carapellotti, a dance researcher, will deliver a dance class for people living with Parkinson’s on Friday 1 August. This class will feature music and adapted repertoire to be featured in the gala performances. Anna obtained a PhD from Queen\u2019s University Belfast in 2022 studying the impact of dance for people living with Parkinson\u2019s and Multiple Sclerosis.<\/p>\n The week-long festival will culminate in two shows on Friday 1 August (evening performance) and Saturday 2 August (afternoon matinee). For tickets, visit www.maclive.com. Follow @belfastballetfestival for updates.<\/p>\n For festival information visit www.highpointsballet.org.uk\/belfast-international-ballet-festival<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Northern Ireland Youth Ballet Company, High Points Youth Ballet, will return this summer with Belfast International Ballet Festival welcoming dancers from across the world to the city. From 28 July – 2 August 2025, over 100 students and professionals will train in a number of venues including the Crescent Arts and High Points Studios, culminating … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24159,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24157\/revisions\/24159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}