Melissa Hamilton's International Ballet Stars Gala

Melissa Hamilton is a First Soloist of The Royal Ballet. She won the 2007 Youth American Grand Prix and that year joined The Royal Ballet as an Artist, promoted to First Artist in 2009, Soloist in 2010 and First Soloist in 2013.

Her roles with The Royal Ballet include Manon, Juliet, Mary Vetsera (Mayerling), Raven Girl, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Queen of the Dryads, Olga (Onegin), the Lilac Fairy and Princess Florine (Sleeping Beauty), Peasant Pas and Zulme (Giselle), Fairy Godmother and Summer Fairy (Cinderella), Pas de Trois and Big Swans (Swan Lake). She has also performed leading roles in Agon, Apollo, Serenade, Four Temperaments Rubies, Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Requiem, The Judas Tree, Elite Syncopations, among many others.

Created roles include Wayne McGregor’s Infra, Acis and Galatea, Limen, Carbon Life, Woolf Works, Yugen, The Dante Project and Untitled, 2023, David Dawson’s The Human Seasons, Christopher Wheeldon’s Trespass and Kyle Abraham’s Optional Family: A Divertissement.

As a guest principal with Semperoper Ballett, she made her role debuts of Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty) and Nikiya (La Bayadère) and has appeared as a guest with Teatro alla Scala, New National Theatre Tokyo, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Polish National Ballet.

Other repertoire includes Ben Stevenson’s Three Preludes, Matz Ek’s She was Black, Maurice Béjart’s La Luna and Wayne McGregor’s Tree of Codes.

Awards include YAGP Grand Prix, Gold Medal at Seoul International Ballet competition and the Critics’ Circle Award for Outstanding Female Performance 2009.

Japanese dancer Ryoichi Hirano is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. He joined the company as a Prix de Lausanne apprentice in 2001 and became an Artist in 2002, promoted to First Artist in 2007, Soloist in 2008, First Soloist in 2012 and Principal in 2016. 

His repertory with The Royal Ballet includes Albrecht (Giselle), Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Leontes and Polixenes (The Winter’s Tale), Espada and Gamache (Don Quixote), Romeo, Tybalt and Paris (Romeo and Juliet), Onegin (Onegin), Jean de Brienne (Raymonda Act III), Crown Prince Rudolf (Mayerling), Prince (The Prince of the Pagodas, The Nutcracker), Rasputin and Officer (Anastasia), Witch (Hansel and Gretel), among many others.

Ryoichi has created roles for the Royal Ballet in Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows and in Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project, Infra and Obsidian Tear.

Yasmine Naghdi is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She joined in 2010, was promoted to First Artist in 2012, Soloist in 2014, First Soloist in 2016 and Principal in 2017.

Her leading roles with the Company include Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Princess Aurora (The Sleeping Beauty), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Tatiana (Onegin), Giselle, Cinderella, Kitri (Don Quixote), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Swanilda (Coppélia), Baroness Mary Vetsera, Countess Marie Larish (Mayerling), Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Firebird (The Firebird), Mathilde Kschessinska (Anastasia), Tita (Like Water for Chocolate), among many others.

She created a role in Valentino Zucchetti's Prima.

Her further repertory includes Le Corsaire Grand Pas de deux, Sylvia Act III Pas de deux, Le Parc (Angelin Preljocaj), Three Preludes (Ben Stevenson) and Ballet Imperial (George Balanchine).

Xander was born in East Yorkshire and began dancing in Hull at age eight. He graduated from the Royal Ballet School with honours in 2005, joining The Royal Ballet along with his sister, Demelza. In 2010, Xander became the first British dancer to be employed by The Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Xander was promoted to Principal dancer in July 2017 after the opening night of Swan Lake during the Mariinsky Ballet’s London season at Covent Garden.

His awards include the Positano Premia La Danza Léonide Massine Emerging Dancer on the International Scene Award (2014), Best Young Male Dancer at the 1st Taglioni European Ballet Awards (2014) and Outstanding Male Performance (Classical) for Apollo at the UK’s Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards (2014). In 2017, the University of Hull awarded Xander an Honorary Doctorate and in 2019 he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for services to dance and UK-Russia Cultural Relations.

Xander has been a guest artist with companies including Stanislavsky Ballet, English National Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. In 2021, Xander launched balletclass.com, a website showcasing leading dancers demonstrating their own ballet and training classes. In August 2022, Xander joined the Norwegian National Ballet as a Principal. In November 2022, he became Artistic Director of Reunited in Dance, a project with the Segerstrom Center in California.

Japanese dancer Madoka Sugai is a Principal dancer with Hamburg Ballet.  She joined the company in 2014, promoted to Soloist in 2017 and Principal in 2019.

Her repertoire with the company includes Peasant Pas de deux (Giselle), Cinderella (A Cinderella Story), Prudence Duvernoy (Lady of the Camellias), Princess Natalia in (Illusions – like Swan Lake), Woman III (Bernstein Dances), Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Ophelia (Hamlet 21), Sylvia (Sylvia), Princess Aurora, Princess Florine, Mercury and Aurora, the Dawn (The Sleeping Beauty, 2021), Louise and The Beautiful Girl from Granada (The Nutcracker), Bronislava Nijinsky (Nijinsky), Woman in Apricot – Dances at a Gathering (Jerome Robbins), Kitri (Rudolf Nurejev after Marius Petipa), Princess Perdita (The Winter's Tale).

Other roles are Soldier Songs (Des Knaben Wunderhorn), The Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Vaslav, Broadway’s Pavlova, Saint Matthew Passion, Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler, Préludes CV, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (Balanchine).

Created roles include A Mystic and A young Woman in Dona Nobis Pacem and solos in Beethoven Project, Ghost Light, Beethoven Project II, Solo for Two (Konstantin Tselikov), Little Requiem (Aleix Martínez) and Götterboten (Aljoscha Lenz). Madoka’s awards include Prix de Lausanne 2012 and the Dr.Wilhelm Oberdörffer Prize 2018.

Italian dancer Alessandro Frola is a Principal of Hamburg Ballet. He joined the company 2019, promoted to Soloist in 2022 and to Principal in 2023.

His repertoire with the company includes Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Endymion (Sylvia), Prince Désiré, Catalabutte and Cupid’s Blessing (The Sleeping Beauty, 2021), Wolf Beifeld (Liliom), Frederick the Great (Death in Venice), Pas de deux (A Cinderella Story),

Prince Siegfried and Prince Alexander (Illusions – like Swan Lake), Love (Bernstein Dances), Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet), Allan Gray (A Streetcar Named Desire), Arlequin (Carnaval) and The Spirit of the Rose (Le Spectre de la rose in "Nijinsky").

Other roles include Saint Matthew Passion, Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler and Préludes CV. He created the role of The Shadow (Dona Nobis Pacem) and a role in Peter and Igor. Alessandro was awarded the Dr. Wilhelm Oberdörffer Prize 2023.

Mackenzie Brown is a Principal of Stuttgart Ballet. She joined in 2020, promoted to Demi-Soloist 2021, Soloist in 2022 and Principal in October 2023.

Her repertoire with the company includes Aurora in Aurora’s Nap (Johan Inger), Blake Works I (William Forsythe), Bliss (Johan Inger), Bouillards (John Cranko): Les Fées sont d'exquises danseuses, Cassiopeia's Garden (Christian Spuck), Falling Angels (Jiří Kylián), Große Fuge (Hans van Manen), Initials R.B.M.E. (John Cranko), Princess Louise, Mayerling (Kenneth MacMillan), One of a Kind (Jiří Kylián), Olga, Onegin (John Cranko), Out of Breath (Johan Inger), Requiem (Kenneth MacMillan), among many others.

She has created roles in A Dialog (Roman Novitzky), Aurora’s Nap (Johan Inger), and Einssein (Mauro Bigonzetti), In Esisto (Vittoria Girelli): Solo, Leisure (Fabio Adorisio), Nachtmerrie (Marco Goecke), Reflection/s (Roman Novitzky): Solo, Was bleibet (Alessandro Giaquinto).

Her awards include Prix de Lausanne 2019 gold medal, the Contemporary Dance Prize and the Audience Favourite Prize. She also won The Erik Bruhn Prize 2023.

Spanish dancer Martí Fernández Paixà is a Principal with Stuttgart Ballet.

He joined the company as an apprentice in 2014/15, and one season later he was taken into the Corps de ballet. In 2016, he was promoted to Demi Soloist, Soloist in 2017 and became Principal at the beginning of the 2021/22 season.

Martí’s repertory includes Romeo, Paris and Benvolio, Romeo & Juliet (Cranko); the title role in Demis Volpi’s Krabat; Prince Desiré, Ali Baba and the Prince of the South, The Sleeping Beauty (Marcia Haydée); Onegin and Lensky in Onegin (Cranko); Allan Gray, A Streetcar named Desire (Neumeier); Colas, La Fille mal Gardée (Ashton); Man in Blue and Man in Purple, Dances at a Gathering (Robbins); Couple in White, ForgottenLand (Kylián); Apollo in Demis Volpi’s Death in Venice; Spring Waters (Asaf Messerer); Le Jeune Homme et La Mort (Petit); Boléro (Béjart). He has also performed leading roles in works by Kenneth MacMillan, Jiří Kylián, Hans van Manen, Edward Clug and Marco Goecke. 

Created roles include the title role in Demis Volpi’s The Soldier’s Tale and the Young Syrian in his Salome and Ascaresa (Alessandro Giaquinto), Cassiopeia’s Garden (Christian Spuck), Naiad (Douglas Lee), Neurons (Katarzyna Kozielska), Patterns in ¾ (Edward Clug), Petals (Louis Stiens), PS (Katarzyna Kozielska), Reflection/s (Roman Novitzky): Solo, Take Your Pleasure Seriously (Katarzyna Kozielska).

Singapore Ballet was founded as Singapore Dance Theatre in 1988 by Goh Soo Khim and Anthony Then. In 2002, the company graced the official opening of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay with the opening performance of Boi Sakti’s Reminiscing the Moon. Singapore Ballet continues to have the privilege of performing in a world-class performing arts venue, exhilarating audiences with a myriad of repertoires. As Singapore’ premier ballet company comprising of 38 company dancers plus apprentices, the company performs six seasons annually with three full ballet performances at the stage of Esplanade Theatre. The highlights of the Company’s annual performance season include the widely-popular Ballet Under the Stars at Fort Canning Park and Masterpiece in Motion, as well as Passages Contemporary Season. The company also presents Made in Singapore through the choreographic workshop, where budding choreographers build on developing choreographic language through a sense of exploration. 

The company’s repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary ballet, from renowned choreographers like Choo-San Goh, George Balanchine, Kinsun Chan, Val Caniparoli, Ma Cong, Edmund Stripe, Natalie Weir, Edwaard Liang, Nils Christe, Toru Shimazaki, Christina Chan, Timothy Harbour, François Klaus, Timothy Rushton, Pam Tanowitz and Loughlan Prior. In 2008, Janek Schergen was appointed Artistic Director. Under his leadership, the company has made new achievements in the international and Singapore dance arena, including 43 world premieres, 22 company premieres, and numerous revivals of the company’s existing repertoire. Singapore Ballet has captivated audiences in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Mexico, China, Australia, France, United States, London, Laos, and Switzerland.

Singapore Ballet tours to Malaysia and Penang annually and has seen a growth in its dedicated support to the company. Through the invitation of Sadlers Wells, the Company has also performed at London’s Singapore season at the Peacock Theatre. Seen to be a little Asiatic gem, “the Company’s strength lies in a seamless transition between strong classical technique and contemporary movement,” as described by Graham Watts of Ballet. Co magazine.

This gala is produced by Hamilton Christou Productions, founded by internationally acclaimed and celebrated British ballerina Melissa Hamilton of The Royal Ballet, London, and her husband Michael Christou, a renowned property developer and businessman. The company’s mission is to create an inclusive global community of like-minded dance enthusiasts, showcasing the best of ballet through live performances.