The Dancers
Lara Flannery
Artist Lara Flannery. Photo by Stephen A’Court.
Lara Flannery joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet as an apprentice in 2019, performing ballets including Serenade by George Balanchine, Artifact II by William Forsythe and Hansel & Gretel by Loughlan Prior. Lara was one of two Friedlander Scholars for the year 2020. She was then promoted to company Artist in 2021.
Lara’s recent highlights include dancing the Fairy of Honesty in The Sleeping Beauty (2020), Zulma in Johan Kobborg and Ethan Stiefel’s Giselle (2021), dancing as Coryphée and the third variation in Paquita (2021), as well as dancing Moth in Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2021). In 2022, she danced in Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella, The Waltz of the Pohutakawa Flowers from Val Caniparoli’s The Nutcracker, Olivier Wevers’ The Sofa, Alice Topp’s Aurum and Twyla Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles™. She also performed as Kiwi in Laura McQueen Schultz and Nick Schultz’s Tāne and the Kiwi. In the digital season Ballet Bites, she performed in Sarah Foster-Sproull’s Artemis Rising and Andrea Schermoly’s Within Without.
Lara was born in Wellington and began dancing at the age of three. She trained under Paula Hunt at Wellington Dance Academy and went on to join the Scholars and Associates programme at the New Zealand School of Dance. At the age of fifteen, she joined the full-time classical programme at the School. Lara graduated with a certificate in dance, then continued training at NZSD before joining the RNZB.
Lara is supported by AA New Zealand.
