Joseph Sissens

English dancer Joseph Sissens is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into the Company in 2016. He was promoted to First Artist in 2018, to Soloist in 2021, to First Soloist in 2022 and Principal in 2024. 

Sissens was born in Cambridge and is of Anglo-Caribbean descent. He first trained at the Georgina Pay School of Dance and on a scholarship with Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. Early performances include in Oliver! The Musical on the West End and Fritz (The Nutcracker) with English National Ballet. He entered The Royal Ballet School aged 13. Performances at the School’s annual matinees included in Frederick Ashton’s Les Rendezvous, David Bintley’s SpringTime, Kenneth MacMillan’s Soirées musicales and Peter Wright’s The Sleeping Beauty. His performances with The Royal Ballet while a student included in World Ballet Day, Draft Works, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, La Fille mal gardée, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker and Giselle. His awards include second prize at the 2014 Young British Dancer of the Year and second prize at the 2015 Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award, with his piece Let My People Go. In 2021, he was awarded a Black British Theatre Award in Best Dance Performance in a Dance Production for The Statement. 

Sissens’s role creations with the Company include in Robert Binet's Dark with Excessive Bright, Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern and Light of Passage, Robert Binet’s Void and Fire, Wayne McGregor's The Dante Project and Untitled, 2023, Kyle Abraham's The Weathering, Joseph Toonga's See Us!! and Christopher Wheeldon's Like Water for Chocolate. His repertory includes Espada (Don Quixote), Siegfried (Swan Lake), Florizel (The Winter's Tale), Lescaut (Manon), The Prince and Hans-Peter (The Nutcracker), Florestan and Bluebird (The Sleeping Beauty), Dance of the Blessed Spirits, Lensky (Onegin), Lead roles in Requiem and roles in Danses concertantes, Cinderella, Cross Currents, Medusa, Infra, Obsidian Tear, Symphonic Variations, The Statement, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse , Scènes de ballet, Rhapsody and Woolf Works. His choreography while with The Royal Ballet includes a piece for Draft Works 2017.