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After 12 years dancing exclusively on American stages, Buse returns to Istanbul as a guest artist to perform in The Nutcracker (Fındıkkıran Balesi) with the Istanbul Young Ballet Company at the Kadıköy Süreyya Opera Stage, alongside Will Robichaud of Ballet San Antonio.
She first discovered the Istanbul Young Ballet Company on Instagram and immediately saw it filling a gap in Turkish ballet — the kind of junior company bridge that exists in Europe and America but had been missing at home. After her Hürriyet interview was published, the company's director Aleksandra Kaner reached out and the collaboration began.
"For 12 years, I've danced on American stages. Only my mother has seen me perform. My biggest wish is to dance in my homeland — even if just as a guest artist."
"I've been looking forward to this for months. This is my first time performing in my own country in my professional career."
After four seasons with Ballet San Antonio, Babadag is promoted to prima ballerina — the highest artistic rank — by Artistic Director Sofiane Sylve. She becomes the first Turkish dancer to hold this title in U.S. history.
The news travels quickly back to Turkey, where media covers her promotion extensively. Turkish children begin to see a new kind of role model.
"The promotion symbolized years of hard work, sacrifice and perseverance. I'm proud to be the first Turkish ballerina to achieve this rank in American ballet history."
"Turkey is a huge country, and it's a huge thing for them. Everybody in my country knows me because I'm the very first one, and now kids are growing up and wanting to be like me because I made it so far away from home."
"This has been my dream for such a long time. Becoming a principal is such a hard thing to achieve — I think maybe 2% of people can have this rank in the world because there are only a few contracts."San Antonio Report, December 2025
As the Sugar Plum Fairy in Ballet San Antonio's 40th-anniversary production, Babadag carries her milestones onto the Tobin Center stage. The role — choreographed by Haley Henderson Smith and Easton Smith — requires nine uninterrupted minutes of the most demanding choreography, with every difficult movement back-to-back.
More than 100 local children rotate through the cast each year. As part of Ballet San Antonio's Send the Kids to the Ballet program, thousands of students from local schools fill the Tobin Center for a special morning performance — for many, their first time seeing live theater.
"In this version, you can't keep any of your energy in. You have to take the risk and go for it onstage — like, 'Let's see what happens.' There are flips, there are crazy lifts happening to the music."
"They look up to us, and you can see they're a little shy and mesmerized, and they want to do our roles in the future. That's precious. I can't even explain it."
Babadag makes her musical theater debut as Pauline, one of the Jet Girls, in West Side Story at the San Antonio Playhouse. She also has piano and music training, but singing onstage while dancing — even in the chorus section — is an entirely different challenge.
"Keeping the notes while dancing and not just screaming was really hard. But the backstage friendships I made with the musical artists turned this into one of my most unforgettable experiences."
A season of range: she performs the Cheshire Cat in Brian Enos's Alice in Wonderland, the Snow Queen and Arabian Couple in The Nutcracker, and Kitri's Friends in Patrik Armand's Don Quixote.
Of all the roles she's danced, Giselle is the one that moved her the most — an iconic ballet carrying deep tragedy, where inhabiting the first-act death scene required something she can only describe as giving the character real life.
That July, Pointe Magazine profiles her ballet career and coffee brand — her first feature in a major international dance publication. The article notes she is not aware of any other Turkish ballerina in an American company.
"Giselle affected me more than any other piece. The death scene was both the most special and the most emotional process of my career."
"When I hear the music and enter that emotion, lightness comes naturally. I'm not thinking about whether I'm on stage or if someone is watching. I am completely in the moment."Yeni Çağrı, January 2026
Launches her own coffee brand — Buse and Rosé — named for her first name (which means "kiss" in Turkish) and her other favorite drink, rosé wine. She had been writing a blog about travel, restaurants, and coffee shops for two years when the idea struck.
She does extensive online research, watches YouTube videos, talks with an accountant, sets up her LLC in April 2022, then spends six months designing packaging and finding a supplier. She chooses Temecula Coffee Roasters in California for their organic beans. Her favorites: Ethiopian Natural and Guatemala.
"My years of dancing have taught me how to be open and communicate with people."
"It would be super-cute after my stage career, which isn't ending soon, to have my own coffee shop one day."
Her artistic director Sofiane Sylve: "The fact that she immigrated to the U.S., got herself a steady job, and is an entrepreneur resembles a lot of what America is to me."
Joins Ballet San Antonio as a soloist at the invitation of Sofiane Sylve — the celebrated French ballerina and the company's artistic director — who was impressed by her audition video. Debuts as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.
Under Sylve, she learns the French technique — a shift from Balanchine's sharp, fast dynamics to something she describes as a breath: elegant, meaningful, with every step's logic, technique, and aesthetic united. "After Balanchine's hard and fast structure, the French technique felt like breathing."
Sylve becomes her most important mentor. "Not just how she dances — her stage presence, charisma, the way she speaks, her sense of style. She showed me what being a principal truly means."
"I still can't believe it. When I heard that, I was just crying. I was like, 'I can't believe this is happening. Turkey's gonna lose it over there.'"
Months of lockdown become an unexpected turning point. Alone at home, she spends every day working on the weaknesses she'd always wanted to fix. When studios reopen, the transformation is visible — her artistic director and colleagues are struck by how much she has grown technically, physically, and artistically.
"The pandemic gave me a rare gift: time to focus on every detail I felt was lacking. When we returned, everyone noticed the leap. That discipline is what launched the next chapter of my career."
Three seasons mastering the Balanchine technique under Victoria Simon and Diana White of the New York City Ballet — a system completely different from the Vaganova training of her European years. Adapting her body takes two years. "It felt like I was learning everything from scratch."
She builds command of Serenade, Rubies, Who Cares, Waltz-Fantaisie, Four Temperaments, Raymonda Variations, and Allegro Brillante.
The most physically demanding work: the Four Russian Girls solo in Balanchine's Serenade — forty minutes on stage with almost no break, dancing to Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. "Every time we finished, tears were streaming down my face. That music is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."
At 18, she sends audition tapes to several U.S. companies and receives a response the next day from Tulsa Ballet. “America was a dream. It became reality.”
She dances with Tulsa Ballet II, then Dance Alive National Ballet in Florida, where she rises to soloist and is sponsored for a green card. The path is harder than she imagined — American companies prioritize dancers from their own system. “That’s why I always had to work twice as hard to be accepted.”
“I think we’re going to America.”A friend in a Munich garden — and then it happened
In her final year at the Akademie, Babadag is chosen to perform Kirill Melnikov’s Cinderella pas de deux at the Biennale Dance Education gala at Semperoper Dresden — one of the world’s great opera houses. She is also invited to perform the Romeo and Juliet Balcony Pas de Deux at galas in Rome, Pisa, Toscana, and Cairo.
She graduates with a Bachelor Diploma of Dance.
After five years of intensive training with Christopher Paluch, Babadag is accepted at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater — Ballett-Akademie München, one of Europe's top ballet academies. She trains in the Vaganova tradition under former stars of the Bavarian State Ballet — a system that shapes her flexibility, leg lines, and turnout.
She performs at the Heinz Bosl Stiftung Matinee alongside the Bayerisches Staatsballett's Junior Company — sharing the stage with some of Europe's most promising young dancers.
It's during this time that the idea of America is first spoken aloud. Over breakfast in a Munich garden, a friend looks at the sky and says: "I think we're going to America." She smiles, thinking it's impossible. "Even Europe was this hard — how could America be real?" But they decide to apply anyway.
"I would spend hours in coffee shops because it was warm and the smell of the coffee was so comforting."
"I clearly remember falling in love with ballet in my very first week at the conservatory. From that moment on, ballet became something that excited me every day."Yeni Çağrı, January 2026
Editorial portrait
Born in Istanbul, Buse Babadag starts ballet by accident — tagging along to weekend classes because her best friend didn't want to go alone. She wanted to be a lawyer. "Ballet wasn't on my radar at all. I thought I would be a businesswoman."
Her friend's mother asks Buse's mother if she can accompany her daughter to an audition at Istanbul University State Conservatory — ten people watching from behind a mirror. Her friend isn't selected. Buse is — and is asked to return for the professional-level track.
She is 11, which she knows is late for professional ballet. She agrees to try it for one year. "As soon as we started that year, within a month, I was sold and obsessed with ballet."
Her instructor — Christopher Paluch, a recently retired Polish ballet dancer — becomes the defining influence of her early career and a second father. Training under him for five years, she learns a Russian base with a broader international sensibility. "I had a ballet crush on him. I wanted to be the best in the class because he would like me. He's in Poland right now and we still talk."
Ballet San Antonio · Studio Performance
Donation-based studio showcase featuring choreography by David Russo.
International Ballet Stars · Jo Long Theatre
Tchaikovsky's timeless masterpiece at the Jo Long Theatre, San Antonio. 7:00 PM.
Details coming soon
Buse returns to her hometown for a special performance. More details to be announced.
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