Julie Kent (born 1969 in Bethesda, Maryland) with birth name Julie Cox, is an American ballerina. Julie Kent began her dance training with Hortensia Fonseca at the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet. She attended the American Ballet Theatre II Summer session and the School of American Ballet before joining American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in 1985. In that same year, Kent won first place in the regional finals of the National Society of Arts and Letters at the Kennedy Center. In 1986, she was the only American to win a medal at the Prix de Lausanne International Ballet Competition, and she became a member of ABT's corps de ballet. Kent starred in the Herbert Ross film Dancers in 1987. She was appointed a Soloist with ABT in 1990 and a Principal Dancer in 1993, the year in which she won the Erik Bruhn Prize in Toronto. In April 2000, Kent won the “Prix Benois de la Danse” which was held in Stuttgart. She is the only American ever to have won this prize. Kent starred in the motion picture Center Stage (2000), directed by Nicholas Hytner with original choreography by Susan Stroman. (via Wikipedia)