Meet the 8 Ballet Dancers From Dance Magazine's 2020 "25 to Watch" List

Joseph Sissens

Sissens (leaping) with Benjamin Ella in Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear

Tristram Kenton, Courtesy ROH

Joseph Sissens’ long, long legs are the first thing you notice. The 22-year-old from Cambridge, England, is a dancer of lean elegance, expansive lines and beautiful footwork. Choreographers at The Royal Ballet make a beeline for him. Wayne McGregor—a man with an astute eye for talented dancers in the corps—cast him in Obsidian Tear and Yugen. Twyla Tharp chose him for The Illustrated ‘Farewell’. And the first artist’s appearance in new work by contemporary choreographer Alexander Whitley and a slinking, grooving solo, jojo, by up-and-comer Charlotte Edmonds suggests a dancer with a curious mind, as well as a protean facility for whatever physical demands are thrown his way.

Outside of The Royal, Sissens stood out among a superlative lineup in the Merce Cunningham celebration Night of 100 Solos, where he gave Cunningham’s exacting geometry a gossamer edge. But he’s flexing his elongated muscles in some classics, too, making his debut as Lensky in John Cranko’s Onegin this year. —Lyndsey Winship

Zenon Zubyk

With lanky limbs and wild red hair, Zenon Zubyk revels in a uniquely awkward virtuosity. During an unforgettable solo in To this day—a work Emily Molnar crafted with Ballet BC’s brilliant dancers-as-collaborators—the 22-year-old masterfully navigates between a comedic courting ritual and mesmerizing showmanship. In an insect-like mating dance set to Jimi Hendrix, he turns himself inside out for an unamused female observer, somehow meshing gangliness with serious cool.

The dancer is a recent alumnus of the Arts Umbrella Graduate Program, and after one year at Ballet BC’s emerging artist rank, Zubyk was promoted to full company artist for the 2019–20 season. Although he has plenty of technical tricks up his sleeve—he was a comp kid prodigy who won the 2013 New York Teen Male Best Dancer title at The Dance Awards—he investigates movement with extreme care for detail. Molnar will leave her artistic director post at the end of this season, but Zubyk’s idiosyncratic performances guarantee he’ll continue to be a standout. —Jen Peters

Lizzie Tripp

Contemporary movement flows from Lizzie Tripp like a Shakespeare sonnet. In the opening solo of Enrico Morelli’s The Noise of Whispers in 2017, she bewitched audiences with supple airiness, nuanced complexity and heartfelt intensity. Now in her fourth season with Milwaukee Ballet, the 23-year-old has not only performed featured roles in several contemporary ballets, but has also appeared as the Snow Queen in The Nutcracker and the Enchantress in Michael Pink’s Beauty and The Beast—a role she originated in 2018.

Tripp trained at the company’s official school and started her career at its second company, growing up and into her artistic identity within the organization. Dancing in Pink’s Peter Pan this spring as a company member, she’ll come full circle: She performed in the premiere as a child. —Steve Sucato

Tommie Kesten

Kesten as the Fairy of Energy in The Sleeping Beauty

Rich Sofranko, Courtesy PBT

Tommie Kesten is not one to go unnoticed. The 19-year-old Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre corps member couples joie de vivre with mature movement choices. A Pittsburgh native, she joined the company in 2018 and has already garnered featured roles.

As the “tall girl” in Balanchine’s “Rubies,” Kesten, who at 5′ 4″ is not the traditional height for the role, filled the stage, her beautiful extension paired with bright, darting eyes and a brilliant smile. In The Sleeping Beauty, she took a thoughtful approach to her pacing and characterization in the Bluebird pas de deux. The athletic dancer’s unquenchable drive has her on a fast track to company stardom. —Steve Sucato

Zimmi Coker

Coker as Red Riding Hood in The Sleeping Beauty

Gene Schiavone, Courtesy ABT

She has only been a fully fledged member of the corps since June 2018, but already American Ballet Theatre’s Zimmi Coker is popping up everywhere. She tore into Michelle Dorrance’s highly syncopated, tap-infused movement in Dream within a Dream (deferred). She scampered about the stage with feverish intensity as the young Adele in Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre. And she exuded confidence and joy as one of the two sneaker-clad “stompers” that open and close Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room.

What you notice about Coker is the clarity and intention with which she dances. Whatever she’s doing, from the smallest character role to an ensemble part, she does full-out. “I’ve learned the importance of expressing detail with each movement,” she says. “And I try to be mentally fully present for any rehearsal or performance.” It shows. —Marina Harss

Mira Nadon

Nadon (right) in Justin Peck’s Principia

Erin Baiano, Courtesy NYCB

Eyes find Mira Nadon quickly onstage, even when she’s stationed in the tall-girl back row of the corps. The 19-year-old New York City Ballet dancer has an open, large-featured face that’s strikingly readable from the audience. And her dancing is every bit as legible: expressive but never sentimental, authoritative but never overbearing. She says what she wants to say in simple sentences, free of italicization.

Nadon can also parse multiple choreographic languages. As the Fairy of Courage in The Sleeping Beauty, she delivers Petipa with nary an accent. Choreographer Pam Tanowitz’s sophisticated phrases are the dance equivalent of tongue twisters, but last spring, in Tanowitz’s Bartók Ballet, Nadon spoke them fluently. And in her mother tongue, Balanchine, she’s unstoppable. Her debut as the siren soloist in “Rubies” last fall had polish, panache, power—a performance in full voice. You won’t need to seek out her face in the corps crowd for long. —Margaret Fuhrer

Tobias Praetorius

Praetorius in Jiří Kylián’s 27’52”

Henrik Stenberg, Courtesy RDB

As a young student at the Royal Danish Ballet School, Tobias Praetorius got to perch in a tree onstage during August Bournonville’s A Folk Tale and watch the dancers below, imagining himself in their place. Now 23 and in the corps, he is a mainstay at the company, where he has danced everything from the mild-mannered troll Viderik in A Folk Tale to Benvolio in John Neumeier’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as works by Jiří Kylián, Liam Scarlett and Cathy Marston. But what’s unique about Praetorius is how he embraces all aspects of his craft: He’s equally at home in character and pure dance roles, and is also a budding choreographer.

During a recent appearance in New York City, Praetorius gave a riveting rendition—slithering, androgynous, menacing—of the vindictive witch, Madge, in La Sylphide. A few moments later he was dancing the first variation from the tarantella in Bournonville’s Napoli with total ease, displaying that plush Bournonville plié and relaxed upper body. “I’m happy the Royal Danish Ballet still produces dancers like Tobias,” his former RDB colleague Ulrik Birkkjaer says of him. “That sense of character and storytelling, at that level, and at such a young age, is rare.” —Marina Harss

Airi Igarashi

Igarashi in La Sylphide

Kim Kenney, Courtesy Atlanta Ballet

When Atlanta Ballet debuted Yuri Possokhov’s Nutcracker just over a year ago, a then-22-year-old Airi Igarashi gave an opening-night star turn. As a second-year company member, she carried the ballet, dancing both major pas de deux in the role of Marie. Partnered by Sergio Masero-Olarte, Igarashi spun and burst into broad, luminous lines, looping, diving and etching spirals across the space.

Igarashi trained at the Reiko Yamamoto Ballet School in Gunma, Japan, and accepted a Prix de Lausanne scholarship from Hamburg Ballet’s school in 2013. She joined Atlanta Ballet in 2017 after impressing artistic director Gennadi Nedvigin with a variation from Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, and her artistry has only grown more compelling since. Her performances in Don Quixote and Bournonville’s La Sylphide have shown the warmth, generosity and multi-dimensionality of a rising ballerina. —Cynthia Bond Perry

Credits for header photo, l
eft to right, from top: Loreto Jamlig, Courtesy Desardouin; Todd Rosenberg, Courtesy Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Erin Baiano, Courtesy NYCB; Jonathan Potter, Courtesy Carlon; Dallas Koby, Courtesy Edwards; Tony Turner, Courtesy Ayorinde; Jeff Downie, Courtesy GroundWorks DanceTheater; Tom Davenport, Courtesy Milwaukee Ballet; Ryan Duffin, Courtesy Yergens; Maria Baranova, Courtesy Chan; Sachs Grootjans, Courtesy RDB; Andrew Eccles, Courtesy AAADT; Kim Kenney, Courtesy Atlanta Ballet; Jayme Thornton; Jonathan Hsu, Courtesy Crothers; Tristram Kenton, Courtesy ROH; Aimee DiAndrea, Courtesy PBT; Marissa Mooney, Courtesy Taylor; Christopher Duggan, Courtesy Hickey; Gene Schiavone, Courtesy ABT; Michael Slobodian, Courtesy Ballet BC; Courtesy Man; Dean Paul, Courtesy Ensemble Español; Steve Smith, Courtesy Edson; Mike Lindle, Courtesy Garner