Stella Abrera To Give Farewell Performance With ABT

Stella Abrera, a Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre since 2015, will give her farewell performance with the Company in the title role of Giselle on Saturday evening,
June 13, 2020 at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Born in Manila, Philippines, Stella Abrera grew up in South Pasadena, California and began her ballet training with Philip and Charles Fuller and Cynthia Young at Le Studio in Pasadena. She continued her studies with Lorna Diamond and Patricia Hoffman at the West Coast Ballet Theatre in San Diego. For three years, she studied the Royal Academy of Dancing method with Joan and Monica Halliday at the Halliday Dance Centre in Sydney, Australia.

In 1995, Abrera received the Gold Medal at the Royal Academy of Dancing's Adeline Genée Awards in London. She joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in 1996 and was promoted to Soloist in 2001. In August 2015, she was appointed Principal Dancer. Her repertoire with ABT includes the Girl in Afternoon of a Faun, Calliope and Terpsichore in Apollo, Gamzatti and a Shade in La Bayadère, The Ballerina in The Bright Stream, Cinderella and Fairy Godmother in Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, Cinderella in James Kudelka's Cinderella, Aurora in Coppélia, Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, She Wore a Perfume in Dim Lustre, the woman in white in Diversion of Angels, Mercedes and the Driad Queen in Don Quixote, Helena in The Dream, the first passerby in Fancy Free, Lise in La Fille mal gardée, the Maiden in Alexei Ratmansky's Firebird, Giselle, Myrta and peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Queen of Shemakahn in The Golden Cockerel, Pierrette in Harlequinade, Blanche Ingram in Jane Eyre, Lescaut's Mistress in Manon, Katia in A Month in the Country, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Snow Queen in Kevin McKenzie's The Nutcracker, Clara the Princess in Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, Emilia in Othello, Tatiana in Onegin, the Ballerina in Petrouchka, Older Sister in Pillar of Fire, Juliet and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, The Spirit of the Corn in The Seasons, Princess Aurora, the Lilac Fairy and Princess Florine in Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty, the pas de trois in Swan Lake, the violin in Symphonie Concertante, leading roles in Bach Partita, Ballet Imperial, Birthday Offering, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Her Notes, The Leaves Are Fading, Monotones I, Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Les Sylphides, Symphonic Variations, Symphony #9, Symphony in C and Thirteen Diversions, and featured roles in Airs, Baker's Dozen, Black Tuesday, Deuce Coupe, Dream within a Dream (deferred), Gong, In the Upper Room, Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, Without Words and workwithinwork.

Abrera created the roles of His Memory and His Experiences in HereAfter, the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, the Fairy Violente (Temperament) in Ratmansky's
The Sleeping Beauty, His Mistress in Weren't We Fools, Princess Tea Flower in Whipped Cream and roles in After You, Garden Blue, Pretty Good Year and Seven Sonatas.

Abrera has performed as a Guest Principal with the Australian Ballet, The Washington Ballet, The Royal New Zealand Ballet and Ballet Philippines. In 2014, she founded the charity Steps Forward for the Philippines to benefit typhoon victims in the Philippine province of Guiuan. In April 2018, she directed and performed in a benefit gala at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Manila, Philippines to raise funds for the creation of the Stella Abrera Dance and Music Hall at the Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education (CENTEX) in Batangas, Philippines. Abrera is the director of Pro-Studio/Stella Abrera®, a training and coaching initiative for professional dancers launched in 2019 at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park for Dance.

Abrera's remaining performance for the Company's 2019 Fall season at the David H. Koch Theater will be the role of The Spirit of the Corn in The Seasons on Tuesday, October 22.

Tickets for American Ballet Theatre's 2019 Fall season at the David H. Koch Theater, priced from $30, are available online, by phone at 212-496-0600 or at the Koch Theater box office. The David H. Koch Theater is located at Lincoln Center, Broadway and 63rd Street in New York City.

Subscriptions for ABT's 2020 Spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House are available online or by phone at 212-362-6000, beginning Wednesday, October 30 at 12 Noon. For more information, please visit ABT's website at www.abt.org.