Stella Abrera will be retiring from American Ballet Theatre at the end of the 2019-2020 season. A Principal Dancer with the company since 2015, she will dance the title role of Giselle on Saturday evening, June 13, 2020 at the Metropolitan Opera House.
*Update: Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Stella Abrera did not dance this performance as scheduled. Instead, an online celebration was given in her honor.
Stella Abrera's Training
Born in Manila, Philippines, Abrera grew up in South Pasadena, California and began her ballet training with Philip and Charles Fuller and Cynthia Young at Le Studio in Pasadena. She continued her studies with Lorna Diamond and Patricia Hoffman at the West Coast Ballet Theatre in San Diego. For three years, she studied the Royal Academy of Dancing method with Joan and Monica Halliday at the Halliday Dance Centre in Sydney, Australia.
In 1995, Abrera received the Gold Medal at the Royal Academy of Dancing’s Adeline Genée Awards in London.
Stella Abrera's Professional Career
Abrera joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in 1996 and was promoted to Soloist in 2001. In August 2015, she was appointed Principal Dancer. Her extensive repertoire with ABT includes:
- the Girl in Afternoon of a Faun
- Calliope and Terpsichore in Apollo
- Gamzatti and a Shade in La Bayadère
- The Ballerina in The Bright Stream
- Cinderella and Fairy Godmother in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella
- Cinderella in James Kudelka’s Cinderella
- Aurora in Coppélia
- Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire
- She Wore a Perfume in Dim Lustre
- the woman in white in Diversion of Angels
- Mercedes and the Driad Queen in Don Quixote
- Helena in The Dream
- the first passerby in Fancy Free
- Lise in La Fille mal gardée
- the Maiden in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird
- Giselle, Myrta and peasant pas de deux in Giselle
- Queen of Shemakahn in The Golden Cockerel
- Pierrette in Harlequinade
- Blanche Ingram in Jane Eyre
- Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon
- Katia in A Month in the Country
- the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Snow Queen in Kevin McKenzie’s The Nutcracker
- Clara the Princess in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker
- Emilia in Othello
- Tatiana in Onegin
- the Ballerina in Petrouchka
- Older Sister in Pillar of Fire
- Juliet and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet
- The Spirit of the Corn in The Seasons
- Princess Aurora, the Lilac Fairy and Princess Florine in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty
- the pas de trois in Swan Lake
- the violin in Symphonie Concertante
Abrera created the roles of His Memory and His Experiences in HereAfter, the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, the Fairy Violente (Temperament) in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, His Mistress in Weren’t We Fools, Princess Tea Flower in Whipped Cream and roles in After You, Garden Blue, Pretty Good Year and Seven Sonatas.
She has also performed as a Guest Principal with the Australian Ballet, The Washington Ballet, The Royal New Zealand Ballet and Ballet Philippines.
Stella Abrera's Other Projects
In 2014, Abrera founded the charity Steps Forward for the Philippines to benefit typhoon victims in the Philippine province of Guiuan. In April 2018, she directed and performed in a benefit gala at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Manila, Philippines to raise funds for the creation of the Stella Abrera Dance and Music Hall at the Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education (CENTEX) in Batangas, Philippines. Abrera is the director of Pro-Studio/Stella Abrera®, a training and coaching initiative for professional dancers launched in 2019 at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park for Dance.
Source: American Ballet Theatre | Featured Photo for Stella Abrera’s Last Performance with ABT of Stella Abrera in Alexei Ratmansky’s Whipped Cream © Gene Schiavone
