American Ballet Theatre corps de ballet member Madison Brown and ABT Studio Company dancer Kayla Mak are each the recipient of a 2025 Princess Grace Award for dance performance. The annual Princess Grace Foundation-USA awards were announced August 5 in New York City. Brown received the specially designated Chris Hellman Dance Award, awarded to one recipient in the dance category each year. Mak was nominated by The Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance in 2025.
Principal Dancer Isabella Boylston, a previous Princess Grace awardee (2009), received a 2025 Statue Award. The Statue Award honors past winners of Princess Grace Awards who have distinguished themselves in their artistic discipline since winning the initial award.
Madison Brown, from Wellington, Florida, began dancing at age two and joined Lents Dance Company and The Art of Classical Ballet at ten. In 2018, she performed contemporary works on NBC’s World of Dance. Brown earned the Legacy Award at Universal Alliance and was named National Outstanding Dancer by the New York City Dance Alliance in 2015, 2017, and 2019. In 2019, she won a gold medal at the World Ballet Competition, the Youth Grand Prix Award at Youth America Grand Prix in Tampa, and a bronze at YAGP Finals in New York. An ABT National Training Scholar from 2018 to 2021, she joined ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in 2021 and the ABT Studio Company in 2022. That year, she performed with Mariah Carey at the Global Citizen Festival. In 2023, Brown danced Aleisha Walker’s Do You Care? at Prix de Lausanne. She became an apprentice with American Ballet Theatre in November 2023 and joined the corps de ballet in July 2024.
Kayla Mak, raised in Rye Brook, New York, with Japanese, Chinese, and Cuban heritage, trained at Westchester Dance Academy and Ballet Academy East before earning her BFA in dance at The Juilliard School under Alicia Graf Mack and Mario Alberto Zambrano. She appeared on NBC’s World of Dance and performed as Clara in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Mak collaborated with Juliano Nunes for summer festivals in Switzerland and Mexico. Joining ABT Studio Company in September 2024, she created a role in Houston Thomas’s U Don’t Know Me and performed in new works by Amy Hall Garner, Madison Brown, James Whiteside, and Brady Farrar, alongside Balanchine’s Tarantella, Robbins’s Interplay, and Lebrun’s Human. She danced in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker with American Ballet Theatre’s main Company. Mak will join the ABT Studio Company Apprentice Program in September 2025 and become an apprentice with the main Company in December 2025.
Isabella Boylston joined ABT Studio Company in 2005, became an apprentice with the main Company in May 2006, and joined the corps de ballet in March 2007. She was promoted to Soloist in June 2011 and Principal Dancer in August 2014. Her extensive repertory includes Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, Kitri in Don Quixote, the title roles in Firebird, Giselle, Jane Eyre, Manon, and Sylvia, Clara in Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, and leading roles in works by Ashton, Balanchine, Bond, King, Lang, McGregor, Millepied, Tharp, Wheeldon, and Whiteside. Boylston earned a 2010 Prix Benois de la Danse nomination, the 2011 Clive Barnes Award, and the 2014 Annenberg Fellowship, showcasing her versatility and artistry across classical and contemporary ballet.
The Princess Grace Foundation-USA, a public charity, was formed after the death of Princess Grace in 1982. The Foundation awards scholarships, apprenticeships, and fellowships to emerging theater, dance and film artists to assist with career development. The 2025 winners will receive their awards at the annual black-tie Princess Grace Awards Gala, in the presence of HSH The Princess of Monaco, on October 29, 2025, in New York City.
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