“I have a sweet tooth, for sure,” says Dawn Atkins. The recently promoted Miami City Ballet principal searched for a snack to bring to work each day, but struggled to find something that gave her the sugar fix she was craving—and was healthy.

“It feels strange sometimes,” the Ukrainian dancer Stanislav Olshanskyi, who recently joined Miami City Ballet, says of his new life in Miami. “The weather is always nice, there are iguanas and birds, and I can see water from my apartment.” He pauses for a moment, reflecting on his new life. “And yet it’s the same world where there is a war going on in Ukraine, where bad things happen and people are dying.”

In 2008, Adrienne Carter headed to a summer intensive at Miami City Ballet, determined to become a professional dancer. “I applied to be considered for the year-round school and got accepted,” she recalls.

Miami City Ballet principal Steven Loch had been dealing with anxiety and intrusive thoughts since his teens. But when he was a corps member at Pacific Northwest Ballet, they became intense enough to make it difficult for him to manage his daily schedule of company class, rehearsals and performances. These feelings were a result of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a chronic mental health condition that, when left untreated, can become extremely debilitating.

What will the dance world of tomorrow be like? An answer—or several—might be illuminated by our annual list of dancers, choreographers and companies on the brink of skyrocketing. 

It may be winter, but there are plenty of premieres sizzling in the wings. Here are four shows we have on our radar this month.

Amiruddin Shah has had to overcome more than most dancers to get to where he is today. The new 20-year-old corps member with Miami City Ballet grew up in Mumbai as the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. They all worked from an early age, cleaning tables and dishes in hotels, and selling pickled mango […]

Edward Villella in many ways epitomized the American ballet dancer of the mid-20th century in his years with New York City Ballet. Born October 1, 1936, in New York City, he began training at School of American Ballet at age 10, and, after stepping away from ballet to earn his degree at New York State […]