Kaelah Poulos-Hopkins

Corps de Ballet

Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Kaelah was born in Washington, D.C. and then raised in Philadelphia, PA. She began dancing at age 6 at Philadelphia Studio Ballet in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. At age 11, she began training at Pennsylvania Ballet (now Philadelphia Ballet) under Arantxa Ochoa and later, Denis Gronostayskiy. At age 14 she received a trainee scholarship with the Pennsylvania Ballet. In her two years as a trainee, she had the opportunity to dance corps de ballet roles in Kenneth Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Angel Corella’s Swan Lake, and Giselle.

Kaelah spent summers training on scholarship at San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, and Exploring Ballet with Suzanne Farrell. In 2019, she received a full merit scholarship to attend summer course at the School of American Ballet. Following that summer, Kaelah joined the Pre-Professional Division at Miami City Ballet School to again study under Arantxa Ochoa. As a student at MCB, Kaelah had the opportunity to perform corps de ballet roles in Alexei Ratmansky’s Swan Lake as well as George Balanchine’s Jewels.

Kaelah joined MCB as a corps de ballet member in 2022.