Great feat for Radford ballerina

Former Radford College student, Soraya Sullivan, has been selected for the prestigious English National Ballet School in London. More than 1,500 dancers from around the world auditioned for a place, and after attending the final audition, Soraya was offered one of only 15 female places. She will commence her full-time training in London in September.

Before commencing at the English National Ballet School, Soraya has been chosen to compete as a semi-finalist in the Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition in London.

Some of Soraya’s achievements include: Sydney Eisteddfod Ballet Scholarship – top 18 (2024), selected for full-time training at the Queensland Ballet Academy (2023), selected as a finalist for full-time training at the Australian Ballet School (2022), finalist for the Youth America Grand Prix (2021), finalist for Asian Grand Prix (2020 and 2019), and Australian Ballet School Interstate Training Program (2016 to 2020).

Soraya has also received scholarships with the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp (Belgium), Berlin State Ballet School (Germany), European School of Ballet (Amsterdam), Dutch National Ballet Academy (Amsterdam) and the Houston Ballet Academy (USA). She has participated in the Bolshoi Ballet Academy Summer Intensive (New York, USA) and the Russian Ballet International Intensive at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy (Moscow, Russia).

Soraya began ballet training at the age of three in Canberra. After completing Year 6 in the Junior School at Radford College, she moved to Sydney where she lived and trained for three years. After COVID Soraya moved back to Canberra to continue her training at the Kim Harvey School of Dance.

Soraya has been teaching dance classes and private lessons at the Radford Dance Academy for the past three years. Soraya says she will miss teaching at the RDA and the many students that she has been lucky enough to work with.