In advance of its season-opening run at the Joyce Theater in New York City at the end of September, The Sarasota Ballet recently announced the addition of eight new dancers to the company’s ranks, with three as principals.

Misa Kuranaga, the former San Francisco Ballet principal who performed several programs with the company last year as its “resident guest principal,” will now make Sarasota her full-time dance home. Andrii Ishchuk, formerly a corps de ballet member with American Ballet Theatre, and Kaitlyn Casey, most recently a second soloist with Boston Ballet, will join the roster as principals, as well. Hired as a first soloist is Sumika Fujiwara, formerly a demi-soloist at Tulsa Ballet.

Other additions include Federico Coletti, Robert Mack and Owen Watson to the corps de ballet and Annette Darren as an apprentice. Returning dancer Samuel Gest has been promoted to first soloist, while McKibben Needham moves from The Sarasota Ballet Studio Company to apprentice with the main company.

Six dancers from last year are not returning, including principal Luke Schaufuss, who had been with the company since 2019, and soloist Trevor Stalcup, who joined in 2024. Others not returning are coryphee member Bel Pickering and corps de ballet dancers Daniel Ayala, Mark Hare and Ben Moss.

While Kuranaga was in Japan and unavailable for an interview, ArtsBeat caught up with Ishchuk, Casey and Fujiwara, just after they’d finished a rehearsal for the run at The Joyce, where the company will perform a program honoring three British choreographers: Sir Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor and Sir Peter Wright. They each shared a little about themselves, their dance background and what brought them to The Sarasota Ballet.

Andrii Ishchuk

Background

Originally from Ukraine, Ishchuk says he was a recalcitrant child forced into ballet by his mother, who told him if he “didn’t do ballet I was going to end up in prison.” For years it was just one among the many hobbies he enjoyed and was good at, including soccer and professional chess. Just short of his 15th birthday, he chose ballet and moved to the U.S. alone, with virtually no English, to accept a scholarship to study with the Ellison Ballet in New York. After winning the pas de deux category at the Youth America Grand Prix, he was invited to join the Ellison studio company and within two years was offered a corps de ballet contract at American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

Sarasota Connection 

Ishchuk saw the Royal Ballet doing Frederick Ashton’s Thais Pas de Deux at the Met and immediately thought it was “so beautiful.” Subsequently, he saw video on YouTube of The Sarasota Ballet performing the same piece and learned of the company’s connection to the choreographer and its large repertoire of Ashton works. Last March, he came to Sarasota for an audition, then returned to New York to “think about everything for a few weeks.” His fiancé, who is from Italy, also dances with ABT and “we had to figure that part out” before he accepted a contract here, he says.

Favorite Choreographer

“I would not be able to say just one…[Alexei] Ratmansky,  Ashton, [Kenneth] MacMillan. The repertoire here was one of the main things that attracted me; after doing the same ballets at ABT for quite some time, I want to explore more.”

First Impression of Sarasota

“To be honest, at first I was like expecting it to be a small town and after New York, I didn’t want the transition to feel too sharp. Now I’m staying downtown, which I love. The first days there were almost strange-feeling; you’re in a state of constant stress, but I start feeling the stress coming out. It’s so much calmer, more balance of life here, but there are still a lot of things to do.”

Other Than Ballet, I… 

“During Covid, I gave myself two months to learn Italian. I studied from early in the morning until late at night, listened to the same movie in Italian every single day and had a teacher once a week on Zoom. Now, I am fluent. I was not with my fiancé then, but [now] we have been living together for five years. I like to call her 'fake' Italian because when we went to visit [Italy], at the border, I ended up being the one that had to explain everything to the official.”

Kaitlyn Casey

Background:

Born in Staten Island, New York, Casey began dancing hip hop but ended up “falling in love with ballet more.” After her mother took her to a performance of the New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker, Casey insisted, “I want to dance there on that stage.” Her mother called the theater, learned that the children in the production were students of the School of American Ballet (SAB), and got her daughter an audition. Though the family moved to New Jersey, Casey studied at SAB from ages 9 to 18, when she received an apprenticeship, and later a corps de ballet contract, with the Semperoper Ballet in Dresden, Germany. She danced with that company until 2023 when, wanting to be closer to family, she returned to the U.S. and joined the Boston Ballet as a second soloist in 2023.

Sarasota Connection: 

While she was with Boston Ballet, former NYCB dancer Philip Neal—who spent a decade in Tampa as the artistic director of Next Generation Ballet and dean of dance at the Patel Conservatory at the Straz Center—joined the company as assistant artistic director. Neal’s connections with The Sarasota Ballet led Casey, who was looking to find a company that was a better fit for her, to audition and accept a contract here. She also learned of the company and its repertoire through her friend (and former Sarasota Ballet principal) Jennifer Hackbarth, with whom she’d danced in Dresden.

First Impression of  Sarasota

“I have grandparents on the east coast [of Florida], but I hadn’t been to the west coast. At first I was like, wow, it’s really quiet here, but it reminded me a little of the pace of life in Europe, and I missed that a lot in Boston. To have that peace and a more quiet place and still be close to my family is really great.”

Favorite Choreographer

“They are all so different, I can’t really say. My roots are [George] Balanchine, so he’s a part of my DNA a bit. I truly love MacMillan. I look forward to doing more Ashton. We did his Cinderella and [Midsummer Night’s Dream] in Boston and also did Dream in Dresden. The work is challenging, but in a way that fulfills me.”

Other Than Ballet, I… 

“I have a cat and I like to do photography.”

Sumika Fujiwara

Background: A native of Japan, Fujiwara started ballet at age 4, following in the footsteps of her older sister. After her sister moved to Canada for her pre-professional training, Fujiwara convinced her parents to allow her to do the same. She was with Canada’s National Ballet School from 2016 to 2019, then joined the Tulsa Ballet’s second company. (Her sister is now a principal with a small company in Toronto.) After three years, she joined Tulsa’s main company, where she rose to the rank of demi soloist.

Sarasota Connection

Sam Gest, who joined The Sarasota Ballet in 2021 and was recently promoted to first soloist, is a friend and former classmate from Canada. “I was always interested in this company. I saw all the amazing rep they are doing and I wanted to move to a different place," she says. "I heard they do many English ballets, which not many companies here do. And also that they don’t do the Nutcracker, which is really weird for me.”

First Impression of Sarasota 

“I hadn’t been here except to audition. The size and slower pace is about the same as Tulsa. I was excited to have the beach and the sea and I was missing seafood a lot and hoping I would get better seafood here. Here has more culture, more colors of life.”

Favorite Choreographer

“It’s really hard to choose, but I think Balanchine, maybe more because I have never danced his work as a professional and really want to do it. I did ‘Serenade’ in Canada in school.”

Other Than Ballet, I… 

“I like drawing and painting. I also do crochet.”