The American Ballet Theater recently announced the promotion of Filipino American Stella Abrera to the rank of principal dancer, reports Rappler.
Abrera will assume her role to the highest position on a ballet company effective Aug. 1, according to a press release on the American Ballet Theater’s website yesterday.
In an interview with the LA Times, Abrera said she was overjoyed and shocked by the news.
Seven other dancers from the American Ballet Theater were also promoted to principals at this time.
Born in the Phillipines, Abrera and her family moved to South Pasedena, California when Abrera was four years old. She began her ballet study at Le Studio a year later, training under Philip and Charles Fuller and Cynthia Young. She also took classes at the West Coast Ballet Theater in San Diego and Halliday Dance Center in Sydney.
Abrera first joined the American Ballet Theater in 1996 and have been in various productions, such as Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
Currently based in New York, she will be performing in Cinderella at the Metropolitan Opera.
You can read about how at a young age she became so passionate about dancing in the LA Times.
