Meet the new dancers at Ballet Memphis!

OSCAR FERNANDEZ (Dancer) is from the small village of Cantabria in the north of Spain. He began dance training at the age of 14 and moved to Madrid at the age of 17 to continue his studies in classical and contemporary dance at the Royal Conservatory of Professional Dance. After two years in Madrid, Oscar received a full merit scholarship to continue his training at the San Francisco Ballet School. While in San Francisco, he performed in Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella and Helgi Tomasson’s Nutcracker and Giselle. From 2014-16, he was a member of Ballet San Jose under the direction of José Manuel Carreño. Other performance experience includes Karen Gabay’s Nutcracker, Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella, Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16, and Jorma Elo’s Glow Stop. This is his first season with Ballet Memphis.

GEORGE W.N. SANDERS (Dancer) is in his first season with Ballet Memphis. George comes to the Company from New York Theatre Ballet, where he performed in works by Petipa as well as in Jim Sutton’s Sleeping Beauty and in Anthony Tudor’s Soiree and Dark Elegies. Other performance experience incudes Ballet Hispanico, Carolina Ballet, Missouri Ballet Theatre, Rock School of Dance, and North Carolina School of the Arts. He also performed in Miguel Campanria’s Sleeping Beauty and Le Corsaire at Gala Fukuoka in Japan. George trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Virginia School of the Arts, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. He also trained in Australia with Ecole Ballet in Sydney. He is from the Bronx, N.Y

NICOLE ZADRA (Dancer) is in her first season with Ballet Memphis. Born in New York, Nicole completed her training in the USA and Russia. In 2014, she graduated from the traineeship program at the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia under the direction of Irina Syrova. She is the recipient of numerous scholarships and her training includes time spent at The Alvin Ailey School, Manhattan Youth Ballet and Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York. Nicole gained extensive performance experience during her training, with highlights including roles in La Fille Mal Gardée at the Bolshoi Theater, The Sleeping Beauty and the Hungarian Rhapsody at the Kremlin Palace in Russia, The Nutcracker, and Jerome Robbins Interplay as well as other contemporary, character dance and jazz pieces. Nicole joined The Hong Kong Ballet in 2014 as a member of Corps de Ballet and since that time has performed in Don Quixote, Swan Lake Act III, the Choreographers Showcase, the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and Turandot during the Hong Kong Ballet’s 2014 tour to the USA. In 2011 Nicole was awarded an Alvin Ailey Fellowship. In 2012 she was a NSLI-Y Russian American Foundation, Bolshoi Ballet Academy Scholarship Award Recipient. In 2013 she was a Grishko USA Rising Star.