Russell Ducker began his training at the Royal Ballet Lower School, White Lodge and graduated from the Royal Ballet Upper School, Covent Garden in 2007. In 2006, he won the Pamela Self Award for dance, as well as a bursary from the NFL foundation. As a student choreographer, Russell received awards in the Dame Ninette De Valois, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, and Ursula Moreton choreographic competitions and in 2006 collaborated with musicians from the Royal College of Music on a new work.
Russell performed with the Royal Ballet in their productions of Swan Lake, Onegin, The Nutcracker as well as the Anthony Dowell Celebration Gala. Russell joined Philadelphia Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet for our 2014/2015 season and was promoted to the rank of Demi Soloist in 2019. Since then Russell has danced in a range of classical and contemporary repertoire including leading roles in Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse, Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort Juliano Nunes’s Connections, and Nacho Duato’s Remansos among others. Russell has choreographed twice for Philadelphia Ballet 2, firstly in 2016 with Where The Sidewalk Ends featuring the poetry of Shel Silverstein and again in 2017 with Little Voices. In 2018 he premiered his first work for the main company, This Divide to music by Glenn Branca, at the Merriam theater. Pennsylvania ballet’s 2021 digital season featured his second company commission, Dance Card in an evening of works scored by Grammy award winning composer Jennifer Higdon. Also featured was Suspended in time, a collaboration with PA ballet artistic director Angel Corella and choreographer Kirill Radev to music by The Electric Light Orchestra.
Prior to Philadelphia Ballet, Russell performed with Angel Corella and Friends. He later joined Angel Corella’s Barcelona Ballet, where he danced various soloist and principal roles and accompanied them in touring engagements to Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Buenos Aires, Portugal, and France. Russell also choreographed several ballets for the company, many of which enjoyed international premieres. Russell’s choreography with Barcelona Ballet includes Built to Fall Apart, Argon, Bourbon Street, Suspended in Time, Epimetheus, and In the Wake of Bliss.
Russell has been featured in numerous television commercials, including one with premiere league footballer Neymar da Silva, and he has performed alongside Hugh Jackman and Maureen Lipman in Cameron Mackintosh’s West End production of Oklahoma.
Meredith Rainey began dancing at 15 in his hometown of Fort Lauderdale. In 1985, he joined the Milwaukee Ballet. In 1987, he was invited to join the newly formed Pennsylvania-Milwaukee Ballet, remaining with the Philadelphia Ballet when the collaboration ended—spending the majority of the time as a soloist—until his retirement in 2006.
Among other awards and fellowships, Meredith has been the recipient of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship (1995 & 2002), the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Artist as Catalyst Grant (2001), the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts (2002), a finalist for the Pew Fellowship in the Arts (2003), and a Pew Center for Arts and Heritage Grant (2010).
Meredith has been commissioned to create works for Philadelphia Ballet, Ballet X, Delaware Ballet, Hubbard Street 2, National Ballet De Cali, Brandywine Ballet, Danse4Nia Repertory Ensemble and institutions such as University of the Arts, Drexel University, Stockton University, American University, Goucher College, Swarthmore College and Bryn Mawr College. His work has been performed in North and South America and throughout Spain.
In 2009 Meredith founded and directed Carbon Dance Theatre, a contemporary ballet company in Philadelphia. In 2014 after deciding to concentrate on more artistic projects Meredith closed the company and remained a sought-after teacher, mentor, and independent choreographer. In the Summer of 2018 Meredith became a member of the first University of the Arts Master of Fine Arts in Dance cohort and graduated in May of 2020.
Juliano Nunes, born in 1990, trained at the Brazilian Dance Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro before furthering his studies at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts and completing an apprenticeship with the Karlsruhe Ballet. His professional career began the following year, when he was hired by the company. His need for discovery took him to the Ballet Hagen in Germany, and he went on to join Gauthier Dance, also in Germany, for two years.
After a season at the Leipzig Opera Ballet, Nunes joined the Royal Ballet Flanders, under the direction of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. He has worked with, among others: Akram Kahn, Ohad Naharin, Merce Cunningham, William Forsythe, Jonah Bokaer, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Hans van Manen, and Yury Grigorovich, always fueling his curiosity while at the same time acquiring experience and a versatility that make him unique among contemporary dancers.
Nunes has also been successful as a choreographer. In 2017 he created Back Forward Back for Ballet Flanders, which he presented the same year at the 31st International Competition for Choreographers Hanover. Nunes has gone on to receive critical acclaim for his own choreography and has created pieces for the Royal Ballet in London, Nederlands Dans Theatre 2, Acosta Danza, Philadelphia Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Mariinsky Theatre, Ballet Zürich Opera House, Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Staatstheater Hannover, Origen Festival Cultural, and Teatro San Carlo. Nunes has also contributed choreography for the hit Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things.