Catarina Estévez Collins

Catarina Estévez Collins joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet as an Artist in June 2022.  

Originally from Spain, Catarina’s training spans the globe, with her ballet education starting at the Ballet Esperanza Arrondo and the Escuela Profesional Castilla y Léon in Spain. She received a full scholarship for the Royal Ballet School Antwerp in Belgium from 2016-2019. Catarina was a trainee at the Joffrey Ballet Academy in Chicago, USA, from 2019 to 2021, becoming a company artist in 2021. 

Catarina has a plethora of experience in both classical and contemporary ballet, having danced in roles such as Serenade (2022) by George Balanchine and Christopher Wheeldon’s The Nutcracker (2021) at the Joffrey Ballet, as well as principal and soloist roles in Edson Barbosa’s On the same Boat (2022), Taylor Carrasco’s Not now, but now (2022), and Derick McKoy’s Road to Flames (2022).  

In 2022, Catarina danced in Twyla Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles™. 2023 saw Catarina dance a wide variety of roles, including Little Russians in George Balanchine’s Serenade and duets in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose, as well as the role of Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. She danced the Flower Festival in Genzano pas de deux as well as Prismatic by Shaun James Kelly in the RNZB’s 70th Anniversary Gala. In Russell Kerr’s Swan Lake in 2024, Catarina performed in the Pas de Trois in Act One, as well as dancing Cygnets and the Neapolitan Divertissement.