Yasmine Naghdi

Yasmine Naghdi (born 1992) is an English ballerina. She joined The Royal Ballet as an artist in April 2010 and was promoted to soloist at the end of 2013-2014 season.

Training and career

Naghdi was born in London and attended Hill House International Junior School before she started her vocational training at The Royal Ballet School. She was as a junior associate before joining The Royal Ballet School at White Lodge. She was selected by the Director Gailene Stock to represent The Royal Ballet School in an exchange programme with the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St Petersburg, the School of the Mariinsky Ballet company. Naghdi features in the BBC documentary The Magic of Swan Lake in collaboration with Darcey Bussell.

As a student, she worked with The Royal Ballet company and danced in Cinderella, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

Naghdi progressed to the RBS Upper School in September 2008 and was awarded the 1st prize in the "Young British Dancer of the Year" competition in March 2009.She progressed from 1st year straight into 3rd Year, the Graduate Year. A few months later, at the age of 17, she was offered a contract with The Royal Ballet and joined the company in April 2010 as an Artist. Naghdi was promoted to the rank of first artist by the end of the 2011- 2012 season, and to soloist at the end of the 2013-2014 season. . During the brief time (September'09-April'10) in her Graduate Year, Naghdi danced Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto 2nd movement at the Birmingham Royal Ballet 20th Anniversary Gala, by invitation of David Bintley, Director BRB, in the presence of HRH Prince Charles. She also danced at the John Neumeier Gala in Hamburg, as well as in Toronto and Tokyo. Her first performance as an artist with The Royal Ballet was in Cinderella. She then performed at short notice in the world premiere of Liam Scarlett's Asphodel Meadows.