Jurgita Dronina

Jurgita Dronina (born 27 March 1986) is a Lithuanian ballet dancer. Until 2024, she was a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, having previously danced with Royal Swedish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and English National Ballet. In January 2025, she was appointed artistic director of the Lithuanian National Ballet.

Early life Born in Saratov, USSR, Dronina's family moved to Vilnius, Lithuania when she was four. She studied ballroom dancing and then moved to gymnastics. When she was nine, a choreographer suggested that she try ballet. She attended the Čiurlionis School of Art in Vilnius and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich.

Career In 2005, Dronina joined the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm, after she was spotted by the company's then-director, Madeleine Onne, at several competitions. In 2009, when she was returning from Verona where she had danced as a guest artist the role of Kitri in Don Quixote, she was asked, at the last minute, to perform Odette/Odile in Swan Lake as the scheduled performer was ill. She completed the assignment so successfully that she was promoted to principal dancer, at age 22. As she was looking for a broader variety of works, she accepted the position.

In 2015, after Dronina contacted Karen Kain, the director of the National Ballet of Canada to join the company as a principal dancer. Dronina made the move as she wanted to have a good balance between classical works and new productions, and believed Toronto was more suitable for her family. In 2020, English National Ballet announced that Dronina would not return in the 2020–21 season, but confirmed she would continue to dance with the National Ballet of Canada.

In 2023, Dronina was featured as one of the main characters alongside Karen Kain in “Swan Song” Documentary Series and Feature Film (TIFF) & (BFI London) by CBC, Canada.

Dronina gave her final performance with the National Ballet of Canada in Giselle on 24 November 2024.

In 2014 Dronina was awarded the Alexandra Radius award for Outstanding Dancer of the Year with Dutch National Ballet. Alexandra Radius commented on Dronina's interpretations of Diamonds and Emeralds in George Balanchine's Jewels and Tchaikovsky pas de deux: “…any role she touches, turns to gold…”.

In 2018 Dronina was a Prix Benois de la Danse nominee for her role of Juliet in Rudolf Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet and Sylphide in Auguste Bournonville / F. Andersen's La Sylphide with English National Ballet, and was also a nominee of the Critic's Circle National Dance Critics Awards for the best female dancer of the year in the United Kingdom.

In 2018 Dronina was awarded the Cross of Knight in the Order for Merits to Lithuania by President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė for distinguished merits in culture worldwide. The same year on October 25, she was awarded the Baltic Assembly Prize for the Arts for her contribution to Arts, Dance and Culture. Dronina was named the most influential person in Arts and Culture to Lithuania in the 2020-21 Governmental Yearbook of Lithuania.

Critical reception Reviewing La Sylphide, The Globe and Mail called her "an irresistible performer" and "there is sensuality in her movement that teeters between the creature and the woman." On her performance in Swan Lake, The Guardian wrote "her execution impeccably clean, not an ounce of energy wasted – there is something unreal about her."

Selected repertoire Dronina's repertoire includes: Their second son was born in 2021 in Toronto, as was their daughter in 2023. The family resides in Toronto.