Julie Kent

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Julie Kent (born 1969 in Bethesda, Maryland) with birth name Julie Cox, is an American ballerina. Kent trained at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet in Bethesda, MD. At sixteen, Kent joined the American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice. In 1990, she was promoted to the rank of soloist with the company and to principal dancer in 1993. In 2000, she became the first American to win the Prix Benois de la Danse in Jerome Robbins' Other Dances (partnered by premier danseur Angel Corella.)

Kent is married to Associate Artistic Director Victor Barbee and they have a son, William Spencer Barbee born April 2004.

She is also an actress and has played the characters 'Kathleen Donahue' in the film Center Stage, and a young ballerina named 'Lisa' in the 1987 film Dancers in which she co-starred with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Alessandra Ferri.