Aya Watanabe
Soloist of The Czech National Ballet (currently on maternity leave)Biography
Born in Hokkaido, Japan, where she attended the Kushiro Ballet Academy, Aya Watanabe continued her studies at the Ballet School within the National Theatre in Melbourne, Australia (where she received the Jocelyn DeCardi Scholarship). She has performed on stages all over the world, including in Columbia, the USA, Japan, Germany and other countries. In 2005, she joined the Roxey Ballet in New Jersey. Since 2009, she has been with the Czech National Ballet, where in the 2015/16 season she was named a demi-soloist and in the 2016/17 season a soloist.
With great sensitivity and profundity, she has portrayed the roles of the Mother/Fairy in Cinderella, the Christmas Fairy in The Nutcracker – A Christmas Carol, the Fairy of Courage Volante in The Sleeping Beauty, Queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet, Gamzatti in La Bayadère, and the Angel in The Nutcracker and the Cuddly Mouse. Aya has also dazzled in modern and neo-classical choreographies, including In The Middle Somewhat Elevated (William Forsythe), Reflections on the Fate of Human Forms (Jacopo Godani), Decadance (Ohad Naharin), Seventh Symphony in A major (Uwe Scholz), Vertigo (Mauro Bigonzetti), as well as in works by Jiří Kylián, George Balanchine, Petr Zuska and Jan Kodet.