Isabella Boylston

Photo: Renata Pavam.

Born in Sun Valley, Idaho, Isabella Boylston began dancing at the age of three. While training at the Academy of Colorado Ballet, she won the gold medal in 2001 at the Youth America Grand Prix Finals in New York City. In 2002, she began training at the Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, on a full scholarship.

Boylston joined ABT Studio Company in 2005, the main Company as an apprentice in May 2006, and the corps de ballet in March 2007. She was promoted to Soloist in June 2011 and to Principal Dancer in August 2014.

Her repertory with the Company includes Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, the Ballerina in The Bright Stream, Fairy Godmother and the Fairy Summer in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, Moss in James Kudelka’s Cinderella, Aurora in Coppélia, Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, Chloe in Daphnis and Chloe, Kitri and a flower girl in Don Quixote, the second girl in Fancy Free, Lise in La Fille mal gardée, the title role in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird, Giselle, the peasant pas de deux, and Moyna in Giselle, the title role in Jane Eyre, Manon and Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon, Clara the Princess in The Nutcracker, Olga in Onegin, Other Dances, Juliet and a Harlot in Romeo and Juliet, Princess Aurora and Princess Florine in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Princess Florine and the Fairy of Fervor in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile, the pas de trois, and the Polish Princess in Swan Lake, the Mazurka in Les Sylphides, Sylvia and Persephone in Sylvia, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Princess Tea Flower in Whipped Cream, leading roles in AFTERITE, Bach Partita, Ballet Imperial, Ballo della Regina, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Désir, Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once, Her Notes, From Here On Out, Let Me Sing Forevermore, Monotones I, Songs of Bukovina, Symphonie Concertante, Symphony in C, Theme and Variations, With a Chance of Rain, and ZigZag, and featured roles in After You, Birthday Offering, Brief Fling, Deuce Coupe, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, In the Upper Room, Gong, The Leaves Are Fading, and Sinfonietta.

Boylston created Columbine in Ratmansky’s Harlequinade, The Spirit of the Corn in Ratmansky’s The Seasons, the Diamond Fairy in Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty, leading roles in Ratmansky’s Chamber Symphony, James Whiteside’s Danzón No. 2, Alonzo King’s Single Eye, Christopher Wheeldon’s Thirteen Diversions, and Gemma Bond’s A Time There Was, and featured roles in Lauri Stallings’s Citizen, Ratmansky’s Dumbarton, and Demis Volpi’s Private Light.

Boylston won the 2009 Princess Grace Award and was nominated for the 2010 Prix Benois de la Danse. In 2011, she received the Clive Barnes Award. She was the recipient of the 2014 Annenberg Fellowship. In December 2021, Boylston was invited by the administration of President Biden to perform at the White House.

She has appeared as a guest artist with the Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, the National Ballet of China, Rome Opera Ballet, the Ballet Estable del Teatro Colon, and the Royal Danish Ballet.

ABT is grateful to Andrea and Ken Brodlieb for supporting the Dancer Fund in honor of Isabella Boylston.