Ana Gallardo Lobaina

Ana Gallardo Lobaina joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet in January 2020. She was promoted to Soloist in December 2020, and to Principal in May 2024. During her time with the Company, Ana has already accomplished multiple special career highlights including when RNZB Choreographer-in-Residence Loughlan Prior chose her as the lead role for his new vision of The Firebird. To have this pivotal character created specifically on her was an enormous honour, as well as being a career-defining experience. 

In the 2020 production of The Sleeping Beauty, she had the opportunity to delve into the opposing characters of both The Lilac Fairy and Carabosse. Other career highlights for Ana are the privilege of dancing Titania in the RNZB broadcast of Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2021) and being part of the creation of Ultra Folly and The Autumn Ball by RNZB Choreographer-in-Residence Sarah Foster-Sproull. 

In 2022 she danced the role of Cinderella and Stepmother in Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella. As part of Tutus on Tour she performed Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain pas de deux. In Venus Rising Ana had featured roles in Alice Topp’s Aurum, Sarah Foster-Sproull’s The Autumn Ball and Twyla Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles™. Her 2023 highlights are Juliet and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, the Rain and Clay duets in Alice Topp’s Logos and Requiem for a Rose by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. 

Born in Holguín, Cuba, Ana attended a regional ballet school during her early years, and from age fourteen she studied full-time at the Cuban National Ballet School in Havana. Between 2009 and 2012, Ana trained at the Miami City Ballet School on a full scholarship, and at the Boston Ballet School. In 2012, she joined Cincinnati Ballet as a Second Company member, being promoted to full company member in 2013. Her most memorable roles while at CBC include Cylindrical Shadows and Eros Redux by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Olympe in Val Caniparoli’s Lady of the Camellias and Minus 16 by Ohad Naharin, in addition to works by Justin Peck, Edwaard Liang, Septime Webre and Ma Cong. 

In 2017, Ana joined West Australian Ballet, where her specific highlights include Solo Shades in La Bayadère by Greg Horsman, Daisy in David Nixon’s The Great Gatsby and X-it by Finnish choreographer Johanna Nuutinen. 

Ana is supported by Ann-Louise and Campbell Gower.