The Sarasota Ballet announces that Principal Dancer Danielle Brown, having enjoyed a dance career spanning more than a decade and a half with the Company, has retired after the end of the 2022 – 2023 Season. The impact her presence brought to The Sarasota Ballet is indelible and her beauty and elegance gracing the stage will be truly missed. Brown began her career with The Sarasota Ballet at the opening of the 2007 – 2008 Season, hired as a corps de ballet dancer. In 2010 she was promoted to the rank of Principal. Throughout her career, she would continue to flourish and dance roles spanning the Company’s vast repertoire, including ballets by Ashton, Balanchine, de Valois, MacMillan, Tharp, Wheeldon, and Wright, as well as roles created on her by Sir David Bintley, Will Tuckett and Resident Choreographer Ricardo Graziano. Executive Director Joseph Volpe speaks of Danielle’s impact on The Sarasota Ballet, “While her beauty on stage has been an inspiration, it is also a true gift to have a dancer who can be appreciated as an artist and as someone who can connect with our patrons both on the stage and off. Danielle is a unique breed of dancer that we could always count on to be a part of a dinner with patrons, stay late for an event to greet donors, or be interviewed and share more of herself with our enthusiastic audiences. Iain, Margaret, and I all feel blessed to have supported her during her career and look forward to seeing where her next chapter will take her.”