17.02.2026
Company News | February 2026
Introducing our new company members, celebrating exciting news and looking ahead to a busy and beautiful year of ballet in Aotearoa.
Welcome back to the Royal New Zealand Ballet for 2026
Dancers of the Royal New Zealand Ballet returned to the rehearsal studio on 12 January and are now immersed in the creation process for Macbeth.
Macbeth, a co-production with West Australian Ballet, will premiere in Wellington on 25 February as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival, touring to Auckland for performances in association with the Auckland Arts Festival, and then to Dunedin and Christchurch. The ballet has been created with significant support from the Haythorne Circle and the tour is presented in association with Avis, marking the fourth year of the RNZB’s association with Avis Budget Group.
Choreographer Alice Topp, dramaturg Ruth Little and costume designer Aleisa Jelbart have been working with the dancers and the RNZB’s in-house costume team since mid-January and have been joined by set and lighting designer Jon Buswell and composer Christopher Gordon. Gordon’s original score for Macbeth includes more than 120 musicians, from choir to electric guitar and bass. Performances will feature eight musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra who will perform live alongside the recorded elements, conducted by Hamish McKeich.
First Artist Dane Head and Artist Jake Gisby in Dazzlehands, 2024. Photo credit: Stephen A’Court.
Following the Macbeth tour (25 February – 21 March), the RNZB will take children’s ballet Dazzlehands, commissioned in 2024 with support from the Fehl Charitable Trust, to 12 regional centres, from Whangārei to Queenstown (4 – 19 April). Performances will be complemented by free dance workshops in pre-schools, schools and kura in local communities, delivered by RNZB Education.
April will also see RNZB dancers performing in London for the first time in more than a decade, with Principals Ana Gallardo Lobaina, Joshua Guillemot Rodgerson and Kihiro Kusukami, and Soloist Kirby Selchow performing RNZB Choreographer in Residence Sarah Foster-Sproull’s Ultra Folly (2020) at The Royal Ballet’s International Draft Works festival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The RNZB is grateful to the RNZB Foundation for a substantial grant towards this project.
Following the announcement of promotions to Soloist (Dane Head and Gretchen Steimle) and Artist (Joshua Douglas, Angus O’Connell, Olivia Platt) at the conclusion of the 2025 Season, Artistic Director Ty King-Wall has promoted four dancers to the new rank of First Artist. In recognition of their experience and performances in significant roles since joining the RNZB, Cadence Barrack, Catarina Estévez Collins, Jennifer Ulloa and Rose Xu are all now First Artists.
Promotions for 2026
Scholars Charlotte Willis and Lyn Lin in The Nutcracker. Photo credit: Stephen A’Court.
As announced in December 2025, the company has welcomed five new dancers.
Two 2025 graduates of The Australian Ballet School have joined us as Artists. Padraic (Paddy) Lum grew up in Sydney and trained at The McDonald College before moving to The Australian Ballet School in 2020. Ethan Dwyer grew up in Mildura, Victoria, and trained at The Jane Moore Academy of Ballet in Melbourne before joining The Australian Ballet School in 2023.
Lyn Lin has joined us as our 2026 Todd Scholar. Lyn grew up in Auckland, undertaking her early training at Mt Eden Ballet Academy, and completed her second year at the New Zealand School of Dance in 2025. Lyn was seconded to the RNZB for The Nutcracker.
Breyah Takitimu (Ngai Tahu, Ngāti Porou) has joined us as one of two 2026 Friedlander Foundation Scholars. Breyah grew up in Invercargill before moving to Christchurch to train with Canterbury Ballet. She spent two years in Chicago at the Joffrey Ballet Academy before returning to New Zealand upon graduation and also danced in The Nutcracker as a guest dancer.
Charlotte Willis is our second 2026 Friedlander Foundation Scholar. Charlotte grew up in Wellington, receiving her early training at Chilton Ballet Academy, and graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2025. She was seconded to the RNZB for Swan Lake (2024) and The Nutcracker.
First Artist Cadence Barrack. Photo by Ross Brown
In addition to new company members, we are also pleased to welcome New Zealand School of Dance students Shanwen Tan and Muhyeon Choi on secondment for the Macbeth tour.
Seven New Zealand School of Dance 2026 Associates, Blake Russell, Marco Russell (Wellington), Kieran Fish, Finlay Hunter (Auckland), Liam Templeton (Dunedin), Aneel Bartlett, Ming Conway (Christchurch), will also appear in Macbeth, performing the role of Fleance.
Offstage, the RNZB is delighted to welcome Dentons as a new corporate partner, with further new partnerships to be announced shortly. We are also grateful to the Rotorua Energy Trust and Tauranga Western Bay Community Event Fund for their support of Dazzlehands performances and education activities in Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty regions. A dedicated grant from the Stout Trust, managed by Perpetual Guardian, is supporting a reorganisation of the RNZB’s onsite archive.
The RNZB farewelled three board members at the end of 2026, and gratefully acknowledges the commitment and service of Toby Behan, Dorian Devers and Nuwanthie Samarakone during their Terms as Trustees. Two new Trustees, Louise Binns, who is also a Trustee of the RNZB Foundation, and David McAllister AM, former Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet, will join the Board in March.
We have some new faces in RNZB Education as Education and Community Manager Lauren Byrne takes parental leave in the autumn. Alina Kulikova (Ballet Collective Aotearoa, En Pointe Dance Academy and the What Dance Can Do free programme in schools) will join the team as maternity cover from the end of February. Meanwhile, Dance Educator Neve Pierce is taking sabbatical leave until July, with former RNZB dancer Ella Chambers (2018 – 24) rejoining the team to cover this role.
In the RNZB’s marketing and development teams. Brianna Regester has joined as Head of Audiences, replacing Mink Boyce, and Luke Cooper, who retired after eight years as an Artist at the conclusion of last year’s Nutcracker tour, has moved into an offstage role as Development Coordinator – Events and Communications. In a further appointment to the development team from the beginning of March, Cate Slocum will be the RNZB’s first Development Coordinator – Research and Stewardship, and will be based in Auckland. Cate has a strong foundation in arts administration and philanthropy, including research for The Australian Ballet, Australian Museum, and Minderoo Foundation.
The RNZB looks forward to continuing to work in partnership with sponsors and funders throughout 2026, especially the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Manatū Taonga, National Touring Partner Pub Charity Limited, Northern Partner Foundation North, Education Partner the Lion Foundation and Wellington Partner Wellington City Council.