American Ballet Theatre's Madison Brown and Kayla Mak Receive 2025 Princess Grace Awards

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 today 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

is originally from Wellington, Florida. She began her dance training at the age of two and at the age of ten joined Lents Dance Company and The Art of Classical Ballet. In 2018, Brown performed contemporary pieces on NBC's World of Dance. Brown won the Legacy Award at Universal Alliance and was the National Outstanding Dancer for New York City Dance Alliance in 2015, 2017, and 2019. In 2019, Brown also won the gold medal at the World Ballet Competition, the Youth Grand Prix Award at the Youth America Grand Prix in Tampa, and the bronze medal at YAGP Finals in New York City. Brown was an ABT National Training Scholar from 2018-2021, joined the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in 2021, and became a member of ABT Studio Company in January 2022. In 2022, Brown danced with Mariah Carey in a piece choreographed by James Whiteside for the Global Citizen Festival. She performed the Young Creation Award-winning solo Do You Care? by Aleisha Walker at the 2023 Prix de Lausanne competition. Brown became an apprentice with the main Company in November 2023 and joined the corps de ballet in July 2024.

Kayla Mak

grew up in Rye Brook, New York, and is of Japanese, Chinese, and Cuban descent. She trained at Westchester Dance Academy and Ballet Academy East before studying at The Juilliard School in New York City, earning her BFA in dance under the direction of Alicia Graf Mack and associate director Mario Alberto Zambrano. Mak has participated in various television shows, including NBC's World of Dance, and has performed the role of Clara in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She has worked and performed with Juliano Nunes in projects for summer festivals in Switzerland and Mexico. Mak joined ABT Studio Company in September 2024 where she created a role in Houston Thomas's U Don't Know Me and has performed in new ballets by Amy Hall Garner, Madison Brown, James Whiteside, and Brady Farrar, as well as George Balanchine's Tarantella, Jerome Robbins's Interplay, and Yannick Lebrun's Human. She has performed with the main Company of American Ballet Theatre in Alexei Ratmansky's The Nutcracker. Mak will participate in the ABT Studio Company Apprentice Program beginning in September 2025 and will become an apprentice with the main Company in December 2025.

Isabella Boylston

joined ABT Studio Company in 2005, the main Company as an apprentice in May 2006, and the corps de ballet in March 2007. She was promoted to Soloist in June 2011 and to Principal Dancer in August 2014. Her repertory includes Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, the Ballerina in The Bright Stream, Gulnare in Le Corsaire, Kitri in Don Quixote, the second girl in Fancy Free, Lise in La Fille mal gardée, the title roles in Firebird, Giselle, Jane Eyre, Manon, and Sylvia, Clara the Princess in Alexei Ratmansky's The Nutcracker, Olga in Onegin, Other Dances, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Princess Aurora and Princess Florine in Ratmansky's The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the Mazurka in Les Sylphides, Princess Tea Flower in Whipped Cream, as well as leading roles in works by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Gemma Bond, Alonzo King, Jessica Lang, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon, and James Whiteside. Boylston was nominated for the 2010 Prix Benois de la Danse and received the 2011 Clive Barnes Award and the 2014 Annenberg Fellowship.

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.