In September 1997 I joined the Graduate Course at The Royal Ballet School (knowing no English) and at the end of the year danced the leading female role in Kenneth MacMillan’s Soirée Musicale at Dame Ninette de Valois’ 100th Birthday Gala as well as the title role in Raymonda Act III and the Third Shadow solo in La Bayadère at the School’s performances. I joined The Royal Ballet at the start of the 1998/99 Season, aged 16 and was promoted to First Soloist in 2001 and made a Principal in September 2002.
Principal roles include Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Odette/Odile in Anthony Dowell’s production of Swan Lake, Giselle in Sir Peter Wright’s production of Giselle, Lilac Fairy and Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Nikiya and Gamzatti in Natalia Makarova’s production of La Bayadère, Lise in Frederick Ashton's La Fille Mal Gardée, the Sugar Plum Fairy in Sir Peter Wright’s production of The Nutcracker, Kitri in Nureyev’s production of Don Quixote, Olga in John Cranko’s Onegin, the Black Queen in Checkmate, Swanilda in Ninette de Valois’ production of Coppélia, Sylvia in Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, Countess Marie Larisch in Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling and the Sphinx in Glen Tetley's Sphinx.
I have also danced roles in Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto, Romeo and Juliet, Mitzi Caspar and Princess Louise in Mayerling, Elite Syncopations, Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, La Fille mal gardée, Monotones I, lead couple in Les Rendevous, Dante Sonata Solo, the White Couple in La Valse the Centre Neopolitan Couple in Ondine, Lykanion in Daphnis and Chloë and Isabel Fitton in his Enigma Variations.
Other roles include the Pas de trois in Rudolf Nureyev’s production of Raymonda Act III, Nijinska’s Les Biches, a Nymph in Nijinsky’s L’Aprés-Midi D’un Faune, Aurora in Ninette de Valois’ production of Coppélia, Berthe and Pas de six in Peter Wright’s Giselle, the Pas de deux from Petipa’s Diana and Acteon at the White Night Gala (July 2000), Ashley Page’s This House Will Burn, the 1st Pas de trois in Balanchine’s Agon, the lead couple with Inaki Urlezaga in Stephen Baynes’ Beyond Bach, Antony Tudor’s The Leaves Are Fading, the Fairy of Vitality, Nacho Duato’s Por Vos Muero, William Forsythe’s In the middle, somewhat elevated, Jiri Kylián’s Sinfonietta, L’Hiver in David Bintley’s Les Saisons, Polyhimnia in Balanchine’s Apollo, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux and Choleric in his The Four Temperaments, the Lilac Fairy and Aurora in the Monica Mason and Christopher Newton production of The Sleeping Beauty, the Queen of Fire in Christopher Wheeldon’s Fire variation in Homage to the Queen, the Solo Girl in Alastair Marriott’s Tanglewood, Glen Tetley’s Voluntaries, Johan Kobborg’s production of Napoli Divertissements and the female role in Diamonds as part of Balanchine’s Jewels.
I created roles in two works on the 1999 Dance Bites tour: William Tuckett’s Love’s Fool and Mark Baldwin’s Towards Poetry and also a role in Matthew Hart’s Acheron’s Dream for the New Works in the Linbury Studio Theatre (2000), Javier De Frutos’ The Misty Frontier (2001). In 2003 I created the role of La Grêle in David Bintley’s Les Saisons, Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV (Danse à grande vitesse) (2006) and the Stripper in Will Tuckett’s The Seven Deadly Sins (2007)and in 2008 a role in Wayne McGregor's Infra.
Television appearances include the BBC Broadcast of Daphnis and Chloë, La Fille mal gardée on BBC2 in February 2005 and Infra on BBC2 in November 2008. She also made her debut dancing the Pas de deux from Le Corsaire for ‘A Curtain Call for Aid’ Asian Tsunami benefit performance, broadcast in December 2006. She won Best Female Dancer at the Critics' Circle Dance Awards, 2006.