After eleven years as a dancer with the RNZB and 19 years of performing on the stage, Auckland born Clytie Campbell has  become the RNZB’s new Ballet Mistress.

Artistic Director Francesco Ventriglia’s says: ” We are delighted that Clytie has joined our artistic staff.  It is wonderful to be able to nurture her talent in a new way and to offer this role to someone who knows the company so very well”.

Clytie Campbell says: ” I’m so excited to take this next step in my career and so happy it’s with the RNZB, a company that I truly love – it’s home.”

Clytie joined the RNZB in 2005, returning from eight years dancing in Europe. Starting at the age of five, her entire ballet training was at her mother’s school, the Philippa Campbell School of Ballet in Auckland.  At 17, Clytie joined the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin, where she danced for more than six years, before moving to Vienna’s Staatsoper Ballet.

Clytie has danced many lead roles with the RNZB including Kitri in Don Quixote, the Sylph in La Sylphide, Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis in Giselle, the grand pas de deux in The Nutcracker, and Carabosse and the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, as well as solos in Esquisses, Silhouette and A Million Kisses to My Skin. Her role as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet was described as ‘a knockout. Clytie also received critical acclaim for her lead roles in 2011’s European tour of From Here to There and on the RNZB’s 2014 US tour, critics praised her ‘technically and expressively strong and appealing’ performance in Javier De Frutos’ Banderillero. Clytie’s last performance with the company was in November last year as Hermia in Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a production the renowned choreographer created for the RNZB in 2015.

Clytie occasionally teaches at her mother’s dance school and has taken many RNZB Education masterclasses for a range of young aspiring dancers.  She took up the role of Ballet Mistress at the beginning of this year.