The Stage

Royal Ballet principal dancer Yoshida announces retirement

Published Thursday 26 November 2009 at 15:38 by Lalayn Baluch

Royal Ballet dancer Miyako Yoshida has announced her retirement after 14 years of dancing with the company.

The guest principal will dance in the forthcoming productions of The Nutcracker and Cinderella at the Royal Opera House, with her final performance being Romeo and Juliet in Tokyo as part of the Royal Ballet’s 2010 summer tour to Japan.

She commented: “I have had a wonderful time in the great family of the Royal Ballet and I will take many precious memories and experiences with me. This feels like the perfect way to end my career with the Company – by dancing two more productions at the Royal Opera House and then saying a final farewell in my home country of Japan.

“I’d like to thank all the people who have supported me and made my career so special - all the dancers, directors and support staff of the Royal Opera

House, as well as all the fans who have come to see me dance.”

Yoshida joined as principal from Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1995 and has danced the leading classical roles in The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Swan Lake, Ondine, The Nutcracker, Coppelia and La Fille mal Gardee. In 2007, she was awarded an OBE for her services to dance.

Director of The Royal Ballet, Monica Mason, said: “I first saw Miyako Yoshida when she was a student at the Royal Ballet School and I have watched her progress from a young student to a unique international ballerina.

“Her special gifts and talent were obvious from the outset - her brilliant musicality, ideal classical line, speed and lightness and her unfaltering professionalism. She has selflessly devoted virtually her entire career to the Royal Ballet companies and she will be very much missed.”