Katja
Wünsche

Benois de la Danse nominee

Katja Wunsche was born in Dresden and grew up in Berlin. She was trained at the State Ballet School Berlin from which she graduated in July 1999. During her studies she already danced in the Corps de ballet of the State Opera unter den Linden in Swan Lake (Patrice Bart after Petipa/ Ivanov) and The Sleeping Beauty (Rudolf Nureyev). Katja Wunsche has participated in numerous competitions. In 1997, she was a semi-finalist at the Prix de Lausanne, one year later she won the second prize and got the Swiss Television prize at the same time. In March 1999 she was a finalist at the Austrian Dance Contest in Vienna and five months later she won the first prize at the Grand Prixd'Eurovison for Young Dancers with Yohan Stegli.

After she had received her diploma, Katja Wunsche joined the Corps de ballet of the Stuttgart Ballet at the beginning of the season 1999/2000. In the season 2002/03 she was promoted to Demi Soloist and in 2003/04 to Soloist. Her nomination to Principal Dancer followed at the beginning of the season 2006/07.

Katja Wunsche's repertoire of major leading roles in full-length ballets includes the title roles in John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, in Christian Spuck's Lulu. A Monster Tragedy as well as the role of Princess Aurora in Marcia Haydee's TheSleeping Beauty (after Marius Petipa), Olga in Onegin and Biancain The Taming of the Shrew (both: John Cranko), Manon Lescaut and Prudence in The Lady of the Camellias and Stella in A Streetcar named Desire (both: John Neumeier), Columbina in Pierrot lunaire (Glen Tetley), as well as Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis in Giselle, a new production by Reid Anderson and Valentina Savina. She also danced the Eloquence Fairy and the Cat-Pas de deux in TheSleeping Beauty (Мака Haydee after Marius Petipa), a Gipsy in Romeo and Juliet, the Pas de six, the Princess from Naples and the big Swan in Swan Lake (both: John Cranko) as well as Pepa and the Gipsy in Don Quijote (Maximiliano Guerra).

Furthermore she has danced several other leading roles in ballets of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Michail Fokine, Mauro Bigonzetti, Glen Tetley, William Forsythe, Douglas Lee, Paul Lightfoot/Sol Leon, Jerome Robins, Uwe Scholz, Marc Spradling, Christian Spuck. Numerous choreographers created roles especially for Katja Wunsche in world premieres: Christian Spuck, Mauro Bigonzetti, Marco Goecke, Marguerite Donlon, Nicolo Fonte, ItzikGalili, Kevin O'Day, Marc Spradling. Katja Wunsche joined the Stuttgart Ballet on divers tours to Italy, Switzerland, to the USA, to Thailand, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan as well as to several cities in Germany.

Gallery