Stella Abrera of South Pasadena, California, began her
ballet training with Philip and Charles Fuller and Cynthia
Young. She continued her studies with Lorna Diamond
and Patricia Hoffman in San Diego, California and trained
in the Royal Academy of Dancing method for three years
with Joan and Monica Halliday in Sydney, Australia. In
1995, Abrera received the Gold Medal at the R.A.D.’s
Adeline Genee Awards in London.
Abrera joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the
corps de ballet in 1996 and was appointed to soloist in
2001. Her repertoire with ABT includes Cinderella in
Cinderella, Gamzatti in La Bayadere, Myrta and the Peasant
pas de deux in Giselle, Gulnare in Le Corsaire, the
Ballerina in The Bright Stream, Lescaut’s Mistress in
Manon, the Violin ballerina in Symphonie Concertante, the
Girl in Afternoon of a Faun, Calliope in Apollo, the central
ballerina in Birthday Offering, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the
Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, Lilac Fairy and Princess
Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, the Ballerina in Petrouchka,
Driad Queen and Mercedes in Don Quixote, Lady Capulet
in Romeo and Juliet, the central pas de deux in The Leaves
are Fading, the pas de deux in Meadow, the pas de deux
in Jabula, the Woman in White in Diversion of Angels, the
First Passerby in Fancy Free, Emilia in Othello, Hermia in
The Dream, and the pas de trois in Swan Lake. She has
performed leading roles in Les Sylphides, Ballet Imperial,
In the Upper Room, Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, Symphonic
Variations, Seven Sonatas, Without Words, C to C (Close to
Chuck), Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor,
workwithinwork, The Brahms-Haydn Variations, Everything
Doesn’t Happen at Once, and many others. She has
danced the works of choreographers such as Ashton,
Balanchine, DeMille, Duato, Elo, Fokine, Forsythe, Graham,
Kylian, Lubovitch, Macmillan, Millepied, Morris,
Ratmansky, Robbins, Taylor, Tharp, and Tudor.
Abrera has performed as a guest artist across the United
States and Europe. In the autumn of 2011 for a period of
two months, Abrera appeared as a guest principal with the
Royal New Zealand Ballet, where she danced the Princess
Aurora in their world premier of The Sleeping Beauty. She
danced featured roles in the PBS Dance in America
national broadcasts of The Dream and Swan Lake has been
profiled in publications such as Pointe and Dance
Magazine, where she appeared on the covers of the
January 2004 and April 2010 issues.
