Northern Ireland Youth Ballet Company, High Points Youth Ballet, will return this summer with Belfast International Ballet Festival welcoming dancers from across the world to the city. From 28 July – 2 August 2025, over 100 students and professionals will train in a number of venues including the Crescent Arts and High Points Studios, culminating in a series of performances in the MAC celebrating local and international dance.
Bringing masterclasses alongside performances, guest teachers and dancers based in USA, Turkey, Italy, Ukraine, Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Scotland will be joined by local dancers, composers and choreographers.
Supported by Belfast City Council, over 60 dancers from Northern Ireland’s Ballet community will come together to share artistic talent, unleash creativity, celebrate diversity and embrace collaboration over the 6 days of dance and performance.
Anna Carapellotti – https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/psy/News/Archive2018-2019/AnnaCarapellottireceivesFulbrightGrantfor201920.html
is an American dancer, educator, and scholar. Anna trained at the Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education and at summer intensives with American Ballet Theatre and Boston Ballet. Anna began her professional career at Richmond Ballet in 2005. In 2008, she joined First State Ballet Theatre as a company member under the direction of Pasha and Kristina Kambalov. She has performed soloist roles in The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, and Don Quixote, as well as Valse Fantasie, Raymonda Variations, Serenade, and Who Cares? From 2009 to 2017, she was a faculty member of the School of FSBT.
Anna moved to Northern Ireland in 2017 and was a founding ballet teacher and répétiteur of High Points Youth Ballet’s in collaboration with her husband, Jake Allison. Since 2018, she has staged classical repertoire on HPYB’s youth company, including selections from Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Paquita Grand Pas Classique, Don Quixote, and Giselle, and coached dancers in classical variations to win national and international competitions. Anna has also studied the impact of dance on health for people living with Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis as a Thouron and Fulbright Scholar, publishing her research findings in international journals and earning her PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in 2022.
Master Class Teachers
Sara-Maria Barton is Artistic Director of S-MB Company. She is an international medallist who has had contracts with all major British ballet companies: The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, and Scottish Ballet. She has danced by invitation in the UK, Europe, USA, and China. Her film credits include “Rob Roy” with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange, and “Mrs Brown” with Billy Connolly and Dame Judi Dench. She has appeared on television, has danced in MTV music videos, and has been featured in various magazines, including Hello and Vanity Fair. Sara-Maria has over 30 years of teaching experience and has worked in higher education since 2006 as a Classical Ballet Tutor. She is a registered teacher of the American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum and a certified instructor in Progressing Ballet Technique. She received the 2022 Outstanding Instructor Award, and in 2023, the Outstanding School Award at the Dance Open America.
Choreographer
Ruaidhrí Maguire is an Irish choreographer whose work has been presented across the UK, Ireland, Canada, Poland, and Japan. His highly athletic choreography blends fluidity with angularity to tell stories of identity, vulnerability, and strength. His work has been commissioned by Ballet Victoria (Canada), Baltic Opera Ballet, Dancer From the Dance Festival, Q Dance Canada as the inaugural ChoreoLab Resident Artist, and his own company, Six Dance Collective. This year, he choreographed The Triumph of Music for Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and London’s National Gallery, culminating in a landmark performance in Trafalgar Square this sumemr. He is a TADNI INVEST Artist and has held residencies with Dance Ireland and Galway Dance Project. Maguire is a former principal dancer with Baltic Opera Ballet and has performed with Milwaukee Ballet II (USA) and Ballet Victoria. He returned to Ireland in 2024 to join Ballet Ireland and is currently a Guest Artist with Cape Ballet Africa.
Ruaidhrí Maguire
Composer
Composer Amelia Clarkson’s music moves between the stage and concert hall, often weaving folk colours with contemporary textures to explore contemporary issues through the lens of nature, mythology and nature. Her has been praised for its “inherent elusiveness… beautifully captured” (Het Parool). Recent highlights include Ephemeral for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company’s national tour, as well as commissions for Crash Ensemble, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Opera Holland Park, Royal Air Force and Six Dance Collective as Composer in Residence. She has composed music for National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Ulster Orchestra world premiere The Rain Keeps Comin’. She is a PhD candidate at the Royal Northern College of Music, and is represented as an Associate Composer with CMC Ireland and a Music Patron Composer which reimagines music patronage for the 21st century.
Composer – Amelia Clarkson
Performers
Angela Zielen began studying ballet aged 9, attending First State Ballet Theatre, The American Academy of Ballet and studying in Italy. Angela was awarded the Delaware Dance Festival Artistry Award in 2012. Since 2015, Angela has danced with the First State Ballet Theatre including in The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Romeo and Juliet; Dracula and Helena in Midsummer’s Night Dream. Angela has danced in various contemporary works choreographed on her by Viktor Plotnikov, Zachary Kapeluck, and Blake Karpels. Angela is a graduate of the University of Delaware and served as the former Assistant Director of the National Ballet Competition.
Stephen Everson from Toledo OH, USA began dancing aged 12. He has trained at Ballet 5:8 School of the Arts, and Project Ballet, and attended the Royal Danish Ballet Summer School in Copenhagen, Denmark. Stephen’s roles include Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, and Cavalier in The Nutcracker; he also performed as a guest artist with Charleston Ballet Theatre. In 2021, Stephen joined First State Ballet Theatre, where his repertoire includes Dracula in Viktor Plotnikov’s Dracula, Dr Coppelius in Coppelia, Fantasy to Dvořák, Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, and Sleeping Beauty. Stephen has performed in original works by Zachary Kapuluck, Blake Krapels, and Maeghan McHale.
See more information and registration at the links below
bookiphy.com/online-booking/Belfast%20International%20Ballet%20Festival/MTEy
