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Pennsylvania Ballet to open its season with 9 new dancers, 3 promotions

Three dancers have left the company and nine more have been hired, bringing the total number of dancers to 43 in the main company, with an additional six in Pennsylvania Ballet II.

Pennsylvania Ballet will open its 2019-20 season in October with "Don Quixote."
Pennsylvania Ballet will open its 2019-20 season in October with "Don Quixote."Read moreAlexander Iziliaev

Six weeks before the Pennsylvania Ballet opens its 2019-20 season at the Academy of Music, the roster of dancers has shifted again.

Three dancers have left the company and nine more have been hired, bringing the number of dancers to 43 in the main company, with an additional six in Pennsylvania Ballet II.

In addition, three dancers from PBII were promoted to the main company.

Soloist Ana Calderon and corps dancers Therese Davis and Misa Kasamatsu have left. Kasamatsu was one of just a few dancers left who joined the company before Angel Corella took the artistic directorship in 2014.

Lucia Erickson, from Minnetonka, Minn., has been promoted to the corps de ballet, after spending two years in Pennsylvania Ballet II.

The other new corps members include Gabrielle Mesa, from Havana, who danced with the Cuban National Ballet from 2011 to 2016 and then with a Dimensions Dance Theater in Florida.

Julia Vinez is from Jupiter, Fla., and trained at the prestigious Harid Conservatory, before a one-year apprenticeship with the Charlotte Ballet.

Nicholas Patterson, of Richmond, Va., studied as a trainee at Boston Ballet and danced for four seasons with the Orlando Ballet.

Two dancers will move from PBII to the main company as apprentices: Sophie Savas-Carstens, from San Diego, and Danis Maciel, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Six new dancers will be joining Pennsylvania Ballet II, including Victoria-Oksana Renzetti, who is from Pervouralsk, Russia, and studied in Barcelona, Spain, with Corella’s sister Carmen at the Corella Dance Academy. One Pennsylvania dancer is also joining: Garritt McCabe, who is from Macungie.

Grace Hill and Jake Roxander, are both joining PBII from Medford, Ore. Jake is the brother of Pennsylvania Ballet soloist Ashton Roxander. Jordan Martinez, from Tampa, Fla., and Jeremy Power, from San Diego, round out the roster.