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Guillaume Diop

Guillaume Diop (born 2000) is a French ballet dancer. He joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 2018, and was promoted to étoile in 2023, becoming the first Black person to reach this rank in the company's history.

Early life and education

Diop was born in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, to a French mother and a Senegalese father. He began dancing at age four. He started training at a local conservatory at age eight, then a regional conservatory at age ten. At age twelve, he entered the Paris Opera Ballet School, where he trained for six years. He also attended a summer intensive at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York when he was 16.

Career

In 2018, Diop joined the Paris Opera Ballet. In September 2020, in response to the Paris Opera's inaction following the George Floyd protests, Diop, along with the four other black dancers of the company, wrote a manifesto titled "De la question race à l'Opéra de Paris", which questioned certain practices within the opera house and called for urgent changes to address racial discrimination. The manifesto was sent to all of the employees of the opera, and over 400 of them, about a quarter of the employees, signed the manifesto. The company responded with a report on diversity at the opera house, which was published in February 2021. Alexander Neef, the general director of Paris Opera, announced actions to tackle racist caricatures in classic ballet.

In 2021, he made his debut as Romeo in Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet, as a replacement for an injured Germain Louvet, and opposite Léonore Baulac's Juliet. At the time, he held the lowest rank of quadrille, and became the first quadrille to dance a lead role in a major full-length work since Mathilde Froustey in 2003. He also danced the Wedding pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, for the company's Young Dancer programme.

In 2022, Diop was promoted to coryphée. He took on more lead roles including Basilio in Don Quixote, Solor in La Bayadère and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, filling in for more senior dancers who were indisposed. He also appeared in Gerard & Kelly's video Panorama. Diop was promoted to sujet, third of the five ranks, in 2023.

In March 2023, the 23-year-old Diop was promoted to étoile, the highest rank at the Paris Opera Ballet, after dancing as Albrecht in Giselle during a tour to Seoul, South Korea. Unusually, he skipped the rank of premier danseur. Diop also became the first black dancer to reach this rank in the company's history.