Soloist
Mantanzas, Cuba
Joined Boston Ballet in 2010
Adiarys Almeida was born and raised in Matanzas, Cuba. Her professional training includes the Vocational Art School “Alfonso Perez Isaac” in Matanzas, Cuba and the National Ballet School in Havana, Cuba. After graduating in 2001 as a professional ballet dancer and teacher, she joined the National Ballet of Cuba for two years, from 2001 to 2003, under the direction of Alicia Alonso. Almeida was a principal dancer with Cincinnati Ballet for four years and Corella Ballet before joining Boson Ballet as a soloist in 2010.
She participated in the International Ballet Competition of Havana, Cuba, where she received the silver medal in 1997 and 1998 and the gold medal in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 Almeida participated in the International Dance Competition in Nagoya, Japan and the Gala of the Ballet Muses in Tokyo as partner of Rolando Sarabia. She was also the first Cuban female dancer to be a finalist at the USA International Ballet Competition in 2006.
Some of her principal roles include Giselle (Giselle); Don Quixote (Kitri); Le Corsaire (Medora);Victoria Morgan’s Romeo and Juliet (Juliet); Kirk Peterson’s Sleeping Beauty (Aurora); Angel Corella's Swan Lake (Odette-Odile); Victoria Morgan and Magaly Suarez’s Swan Lake; Alicia Alonso’s The Nutcracker (Clara); Val Caniparoli’s The Nutcracker (Marie and Rose); Kirk Peterson’s Carmen (Carmen); Jose Pares La Fille Mal Gardee (Lise); Natalia Makarova’s La Bayadere (Gamzatti and The First Shades Variation); Cinderella (Cinderella); Florence Clerc’s Les Sylphides (Mazurka); Mikko Nissinen’s The Nutcracker (Sugar Plum Fairy and Dew Drop); John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet (Three Gypsies); and Florence Clerc’s La Bayadere (Manu and Second Shades Variation). She has also performed many ballets from important choreographers such as George Balanchine's Tchaikovsky pas de deux, Stars and Stripes (Liberty Bill), El Ballo de la Regina, Who Cares?, and Concerto Barroco; Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room and Baker’s Dozen; Arthur Saint-Leon’s La Vivandiere; Clark Tippet’s Bruch Violin Concerto (The Pink pas de deux); Christopher Wheeldon’s VIII (Anne Boylen), Coppelia, Satanella, and Diana and Acteon pas de deux; and many other works by Stanton Welch, Twyla Tharp, Lynn Taylor Corbett, Jamal Story, Angel Corella, Val Caniparoli, Jerome Robbins, Victoria Morgan, Ivan Tenorio, Alberto Mendez, Viktor Kabaniaev, George Birkadze, Florence Clerc, Mikko Nissinen, and Christopher Wheeldon among others.
Almeida has been invited to perform as a principal guest artist with Ballet Concerto de Puerto Rico, The Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, The Miami International Ballet Festival, The Baltic Ballet Festival, The NBA Ballet in Japan, The Slovene National Opera and Ballet, The Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet, The Stars of the 21st Century Ballet Gala in Bucarest, Ballet Rosario Suarez, Open Dance Festival in Saint Petersburg, Russia and many other galas and important stages around the world.
She has been described by The New York Times as “[making] technical feats look like the purest and most honest ballet dancing.”
Photo by Gene Schiavone.
