Lily Wills was born in Seattle and raised in Los Angeles, California. She started dancing at age 14 at The Portland Ballet and continued training with The School of Oregon Ballet Theater, in Portland Oregon. She then went on to train at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School Graduate Program and performed with the company while there. Lily joined Carolina Ballet in 2015, where she danced for 5 seasons and was promoted to soloist in 2018. In 2021, she joined Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, where she currently dances. Lily’s favorite roles include Helena in George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Calliope in his Apollo, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, the principal pas de deux in Zalman Raffael’s Rhapsody in Blue and Metaphorical Heart, the title role in Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s The Ugly Duckling, Moyna in Peter Boal’s Giselle, and Rosaline in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Romeo et Juliette.  She has also been featured in works by Penny Saunders, Dwight Rhoden, Crystal Pite, Kent Stowell, Robert Weiss, Justin Peck, and Twyla Tharp. This is her first year with NCI.