Ontario student heads to English National Ballet School

The English National Ballet School recently invited Canadian ballet student Kaylee Marko to attend its intensive two-year training program at its home base in London. Sixteen-year-old Marko was one of sixty candidates invited to audition for the English National Ballet School, which recently conducted a search for new students in North America. Of those sixty, only three candidates were invited to the school for a two-year professional development program. Marko studied ballet at the Hamilton Academy of Performing Arts in Dundas, Ontario, under Artistic Director Max Ratevosian (a former principal dancer and ballet master at the Moscow State Ballet Theatre). Along with Melania Pawliw, Ratevosian is also co-founder of the Hamilton City Ballet. Ratevosian lauded Marko in a press release: “You can’t hide it, she has a natural gift. With her physicality, her musicality and her dance movement she has the foundation to reach the top of her field. With the training she will receive at the English National Ballet School I believe she will one day be a prima ballerina in a world-class ballet company.”