Julie Kent
Julie Kent was born in Bethesda, Maryland, United States on July 11th, 1969 and is the Dancer. At the age of 54, Julie Kent biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Julie Kent (born 1969) is an American ballet dancer; she appeared as a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre from 1993 to June 2015.
Juliet was the protagonist of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet in her farewell role.
In 2016, she was named artistic director of The Washington Ballet.
Early life
Julie Cox was born in Bethesda, Maryland, and she was born Julie Cox. Her father, a nuclear physicist, and her mother, who hails from New Zealand, was a ballet dancer and later flight attendant. At age eight, she began dancing. She studied with Hortensia Fonseca at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet. She also spent summers at American Ballet Theatre II and School of American Ballet, respectively. At the suggestion of Mikhail Baryshnikov, she took the stage name Julie Kent.
Personal life
Kent is married to Victor Barbee, former ABT Principal Dancer and Associate Artistic Director, and now The Washington Ballet Associate Artistic Director. They are the parents of two children.
Career
Kent first appeared as an apprentice at the American Ballet Theatre in 1985. She appeared at the Prix de Lausanne again this year and became the first American woman to win any gold that year. She joined the corps de ballet later that year. Kent was promoted to soloist in 1990. She was voted principal dancer in 1993 and she was the first American to win the Erik Bruhn Prize that year. She was the first American to win the Prix Benois de la Danse in 2000, and she was the first American to win the prize.
She has performed for Marius Petipa, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, and John Cranko through her dance career. She has appeared in films by John Neumeier, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Nacho Duato, and Stanton Welch. She has appeared in Russia, Italy, Germany, Australia, Argentina, and Chile. Kent was one of José Manuel Carreto's closest friends in Swan Lake, his farewell appearance, with Kent as Odette and Gillian Murphy as Odile.
Kent resigned from dancing in 2015. Romeo and Juliet was her farewell appearance, with Roberto Bolle as her Romeo. She has been dancing with ABT for 29 years, and she is the longest-serving principal dancer in the company's history.
Following her resignation, she became ABT's summer program's artistic director, with over 1,000 students learning in various locations around the country.
Kent will take over as artistic director of the Washington Ballet in March 2016, replacing Septime Webre. She has acquired 26 new commissions during her tenure, including works by Gemma Bond and Ethan Stiefel. Victor Barbee co-starred The Sleeping Beauty. Kent is expected to leave Washington Ballet at the end of the 2022-23 season, according to the poster below. She is due to join the Houston Ballet as an artistic director, as well as new artistic director Stanton Welch, as of July 2023.
Awards
- First place in the regional finals of the National Society of Arts and Letters, 1985
- A medal at Prix de Lausanne, 1986
- Erik Bruhn Prize, 1993 - first American winner
- Prix Benois de la Danse, 2000 - first American winner
- Honorary Doctorate of Performing Arts from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, 2012
- Lifetime Achievement Award from Dance Magazine, 2012