Maria Luisa Castillo Yoshida

Maria Luisa Castillo Yoshida, of Japanese-Italian heritage, received her professional dance training at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart and the renowned Royal Ballet Upper School in London. Upon graduating, she was immediately engaged by The Royal Ballet in London. She has also worked with Ballet de Catalunya, Dortmund Ballet, Aalto Ballett Essen, and English National Ballet. Over the course of her career, she has performed in choreographies by Christopher Wheeldon, Xin Peng Wang, Katarzyna Kozielska, Ben Van Cauwenbergh, Frederick Ashton, Sir Peter Wright, Kenneth MacMillan, and David Bintley.

Since the 2020/21 season, Maria Luisa Castillo Yoshida has been a member of Ballett am Rhein. She has since appeared in works including Twyla Tharp’s "Commentaries on the Floating World", "Spectrum" by Juanjo Arqués, and as Aunt Zuckermund in Demis Volpi’s "The Nutcracker". Further roles have included appearances in Roland Petit’s "Carmen", Aszure Barton’s "Baal", as Coppélia in Hélène Blackburn’s "Coppélia x Machina", and in Demis Volpi’s "The thing with feathers". Her repertoire also includes soloist roles in George Balanchine’s "The Four Temperaments" and "Rubies", in William Forsythe’s "Artifact", and in "Polyphonia" by Christopher Wheeldon. In the 2024/25 season, she additionally danced in "Moto perpetuo" by Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich and appeared as Aphrodite in Bridget Breiner’s "Daphnis et Chloé, Suiten".