Maria Kousouni (Greek National Ballet/Medea) was born in Athens-Greece. She trained at the Grigoriadou professional dance school where she studied the Vaganova System. From 1999-2004 she was member of the Vienna State Opera Ballet, and in 2004 John Neumeier invited her to join the Hamburg Ballet. In 2006, she returned to Greece and became a Principal Dancer of the Greek National Ballet. Her large repertory includes leading roles such as Juliet in Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, Phrygia in Spartacus, Zanella’s Bolero, Nijinska in Nijnsky, and Audrey in John Neumeier’s As You Like It and Requiem. She has also performed in works by Natalya Makarova, Lorca Massine, Irek Muchamedov, and George Balanchine, among others. For the Festival of the Aegean she will perform William Forsythe’s Slingerland, and Renato Zanella will create for her Medea with music by Theodorakis.