MISTY COPELAND Born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Principal Dancer Copeland began her studies at the age of 13 at the San Pedro City Ballet. At the age of fifteen she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She then began her studies at the Lauridsen Ballet Center. Copeland has studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and ’s Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000.

Copeland joined ABT’s Studio Company in September 2000, then joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001. She was appointed a Soloist in August 2007 and a Principal Dancer in August 2015. Her roles with the Company include Gamzatti, a Shade and the Lead D’Jampe in La Bayadère, a leading role in Birthday Offering, Milkmaid in The Bright Stream, the Fairy Autumn in ’s , Blossom in James Kudelka’s Cinderella, Swanilda and the Mazurka Lady in Coppélia, Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, Mercedes, Driad Queen, the lead gypsy and a flower girl in

Don Quixote, , the Masks in Christopher Wheeldon’s VIII, © Copyright 2016 in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird, Flower Girl in Gaîté Ballet Theatre Foundation, Inc. Parisienne, Zulma and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Queen of All rights reserved. Shemakhan in The Golden Cockerel, the Waltz in Les Sylphides, Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon, Clara the Princess, Columbine and one of The Nutcracker’s Sisters in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Bianca in Othello, a Gypsy in Petrouchka, the Lead Polovtsian Girl in the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, the Saracen Dancer in Raymonda, Cowgirl in Rodeo, Juliet and a Harlot in Romeo and Juliet, Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette-Odile, the pas de trios, a cygnet and the Hungarian Princess in , the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, leading roles in Bach Partita, The Brahms-Haydn and I and roles in Airs, Amazed in Burning Dreams, Baker’s Dozen, , Birthday Offering, Black Tuesday, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Brief Fling, Company B, Désir, Gong, Hereafter, In the Upper Room, Overgrown Path, Pretty Good Year, Private Light, Raymonda Divertissements, Sechs Tänze, Sinatra Suite, Sinfonietta, Thirteen Diversions, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and workwithinwork.

Copeland created His Loss in AfterEffect, the Spanish Dance in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, the Fairy Fleur de farine (Wheat flower) in Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty and leading roles in C. to C. (Close to Chuck), Dumbarton, Glow – Stop, One of Three and With a Chance of Rain.

Copeland received the 2008 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts and was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2013. In 2014, President Obama appointed Copeland to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. She is the winner of a 2014 Dance Magazine Award. Copeland is the author of the best-selling memoir, Life in Motion and the children’s book Firebird.

Ms. Copeland's performances with American Ballet Theatre are sponsored by Valentino D. Carlotti.

CALVIN ROYAL III Calvin Royal III began his formal dance training under the direction of Corps de Ballet Suzanne Pomerantzeff and Patricia L. Paige at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age 14. He was a finalist at the Youth America Grand Prix Scholarship Competition in New York City in April 2006 and joined the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre in September 2006. Royal was also the recipient of the Ethan Stiefel Scholarship in 2006 and 2007. While at the JKO School, Royal appeared in original works by Raymond Lukens and Jessica Lang.

Royal joined ABT II (now the ABT Studio Company) in December 2007 and danced leading roles including Prince Siegfried in the White Swan and Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake, ’s , Jerome Robbins’ Interplay, Antony Tudor’s Continuo, and works by Edward Liaang, Aszure Barton, Jodie Gates, and Brian Reeder.

Royal joined the main Company as an apprentice in October 2010 and

© Copyright 2016 the corps de ballet in April 2011. His repertoire with the Company Ballet Theatre Foundation, Inc. includes a Cavalier in Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, Persian Man in The All rights reserved. Golden Cockerel, the Recruit and the Spanish Dance in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, a Carnival Dancer in Othello, Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, the Spanish Prince and Prince Fortune in The Sleeping Beauty, Benno and the Spanish Dance in Swan Lake, Jaseion in and roles in Bach Partita, Black Tuesday, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Clear, Company B, Duets, Piano Concerto #1, Raymonda Divertissements, Seven Sonatas, Sinfonietta, and Thirteen Diversions.

He created a Fairy Cavalier in Alexei Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty, a leading role in after Plato's Symposium and roles in After You and AfterEffect.

Royal was a 2014 winner of a grant from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund.

Mr. Royal's performances with American Ballet Theatre are sponsored by Harlan Blake and Sharon Patrick.