Who's Involved

Everybody Ballet has a roster of current and former Royal Ballet dancers teaching for us, including current Royal Ballet Principal Character Artist, Bennet Gartside. We also have the opportunity to provide the chance for our students to take classes from guest teachers who are world class dancers associated with some of Europe's leading ballet companies. 

Everybody Ballet Teachers

English dancer Bennet Gartside is a Principal Character Artist of The Royal Ballet and Video Archive Manager for the Company. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and on graduation in 1995 joined the Company as an Artist, promoted to First Artist in 2000, Soloist in 2002, First Soloist in 2007 and Principal Character Artist in 2017. 

Gartside was born in Lancaster and started dancing aged seven. He trained at the Sharon Harrison School of Dance before joining The Royal Ballet Lower School. For his graduation performance he danced Two Pigeons with Laura Morera, Mayuko Maeda and Will Kemp. His roles with the Company include Crown Prince Rudolf and Emperor Franz Josef (Mayerling), Ivan Tsarevich (The Firebird), Leontes (The Winter’s Tale), Mercutio, Tybalt, Friar Laurence and Escalus (Romeo and Juliet), Widow Simone (La Fille mal gardée), Hilarion (Giselle), Prince Gremin (Onegin), Lescaut, Gaoler and Monsieur G.M. (Manon), Drosselmeyer (The Nutcracker), Husband (The Concert), Von Rothbart (Swan Lake), Dr. Coppélius (Coppélia), Zuñiga (Carmen), Husband (Anastasia), Step-Sister (Cinderella) and roles in Like Water for Chocolate, Enigma Variations, Ballet Imperial, La Valse, Sinfonietta, Judas Tree, Song of the Earth, Dances at a Gathering, Scènes de ballet, Theme and Variations and Ceremony of Innocence. His role creations include Walter Sickert (Sweet Violets), Father (Hansel and Gretel), Quant (The Age of Anxiety) and Alphonse (Frankenstein) for Liam Scarlett, Antigonus (The Winter’s Tale) for Christopher Wheeldon and in Twyla Tharp’s Mr Worldly Wise, Will Tuckett’s The Crucible, Cathy Marston’s Traces, Alastair Marriott’s Tanglewood and Scarlett’s Of Mozart, Asphodel Meadows and Consolations and Liebestraum. 

Bennet is a filmmaker and maintains The Royal Ballet’s video archive. He also works as a ballet teacher. He has been the driving force behind Everybody Ballet since the summer of 2017 and in addition regularly teaches group and private classes.

Leire was born in Bilbao, Spain. She trained in Classical Ballet with Ion Beitia for 7 years and continued her dance education at The Royal Ballet upper school before joining the The Royal Ballet Company in 1990 where she danced for 12 years, as a soloist. In 2002 Leire joined George Piper Dance (The Ballet Boyz). Leire is a certified dance teacher (R.A.D. Professional Dancers Teaching Course) as well as a certified Pilates and Gyrotonic instructor.

Guest Teachers

Japanese dancer Fumi Kaneko is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She joined the Company during the 2010/11 Season and was promoted to First Artist in 2012, Soloist in 2013, First Soloist in 2018, and Principal, 2021.

Kaneko trained at the Jinushi Kaoru Ballet School, Osaka. She won gold medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition, 2008, and silver medals at the Moscow International Ballet Competition, 2009, and the USA International Ballet Competition, 2010. That year she joined the Jinushi Kaoru Ballet Company, where her roles included Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker) and Kitri (Don Quixote).

Kaneko’s repertory with The Royal Ballet includes Manon, Cinderella, Fairy Godmother (Cinderella), Odette/Odile, Juliet, Kitri, Tatiana, Sugar Plum Fairy, Princess Aurora and Lilac Fairy (The Sleeping Beauty), Gypsy Girl (The Two Pigeons), Myrtha (Giselle), pas d’action (Prince of the Pagodas), Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Countess Larisch and Mitzi Caspar (Mayerling), Hermione (The Winter's Tale), Polyhymnia (Apollo), Mama Elena (Like Water for Chocolate), Oryx (MADDADDAM), The Siren (Prodigal Son) and roles in Symphony in C, The Two of Us, Les Rendezvous, Corybantic Games, Viscera, The Four Temperaments, Sweet Violets, Concerto, Limen, Infra, ‘Diana and Actaeon’ (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012), Woolf Works, Asphodel Meadows, Symphony in C, Medusa, Dances at a Gathering, Within the Golden Hour, After the Rain, In Our Wishes and Scènes de ballet. She created roles including Jessica Lang's Twinkle, Untitled, 2023, The Dante Project and Prima.

Awards include Critics' Circle National Dance Awards 2023 Best Female Dancer.

Argentine dancer Marianela Nuñez is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. She joined The Royal Ballet Upper School in 1997 and joined the Company in 1998, promoted to First Soloist in 2000 and to Principal in 2002 aged 20. She has performed all the leading roles in the classical, dramatic and contemporary repertory, including in works by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, John Cranko, William Forsythe, Jirí Kylián, Kenneth MacMillan, Wayne McGregor, Ashley Page, Jerome Robbins, Liam Scarlett, Glen Tetley, Will Tuckett, Antony Tudor and Christopher Wheeldon. Many of her roles have been captured on DVD. She has created numerous roles in Infra, Carbon Life, DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse, Aeternum, Asphodel Meadows, 'Diana and Actaeon' (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012), Human Seasons, Tetractys, Acosta's Carmen and Multiverse, among other works.

Nuñez was born in Buenos Aires and began dancing at the age of three. When she was six she began training at the Teatro Colón Ballet School, joining the Teatro Colón company aged 14. She took on corps and soloist roles and toured internationally, both with the company and as a guest artist with Maximiliano Guerra.

Nuñez’s awards include Best Female Dancer at the 2005, 2012, 2018 and 2022 Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards, Konex de Platino for Best Dancer of the Decade in Argentina in 2009 and the María Ruanova Award in 2011. She received the 2013 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, in recognition of her performances in Viscera and in roles created on her in Aeternum and ‘Diana and Actaeon’ (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012). She has appeared as a guest artist with companies including Vienna State Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, La Scala, Milan, Ballet Estable del Teatro Colón, Ballet Argentino de La Plata and Australian Ballet, and in galas around the world.

She was awarded an OBE in 2024 for her services to dance. 

Japanese dancer Ryoichi Hirano is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. He joined the Company as a Prix de Lausanne apprentice in 2001 and became an Artist in 2002, promoted to First Artist in 2007, Soloist in 2008, First Soloist in 2012 and Principal in 2016. 

Hirano was born in Osaka and trained at Setsuko Hirano Ballet School. Awards include the 2001 Prix de Lausanne Gold Medal. His repertory with The Royal Ballet includes Rasputin (Anastasia Act III) Albrecht (Giselle), Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Leontes and Polixenes (The Winter’s Tale), Espada and Gamache (Don Quixote), Tybalt, Paris and Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Onegin (Onegin), Jean de Brienne (Raymonda Act III), Crown Prince Rudolf (Mayerling), Prince (The Prince of the Pagodas, The Nutcracker), Rasputin and Officer (Anastasia), Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Robert Wood (Sweet Violets), Black Knight (Checkmate), Dr Samuel-Jean Pozzi (Strapless), Soldier (Different Drummer), Human (‘Still Life’ at the Penguin Café), Fate (Acosta’s Carmen), Creature (Frankenstein), Solor, Lt. Colonel Vershinin (Winter Dreams), Ivan Tsarevich (The Firebird) and roles in Corybantic Games, Elite Syncopations, After the Rain, Woolf Works, Song of the Earth, The Two Pigeons, Gloria, Concerto, Chroma, Viscera, ‘Emeralds’ and ‘Diamonds’ (Jewels), Serenade, Symphony in C, DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, Scènes de ballet, Voluntaries, Cinderella, Aeternum Within The Golden Hour, Multiverse, Medusa and Corybantic Games. 

Hirano’s role creations for the Company include in Gemma Bond's Boundless, Asphodel Meadows and in Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project, Infra and Obsidian Tear. 

Brazilian dancer Isabella Gasparini is a First Soloist of The Royal Ballet. She joined the Company in January 2014 as an Artist, promoted to First Artist in 2016, Soloist in 2019 and First Soloist in 2023. 

Gasparini was born in São Paulo and trained at Ballet Marcia Lago (her mother’s school), with Toshie Kobayashi and at Canada’s National Ballet School. She joined Northern Ballet in 2007 and was promoted to coryphée in 2011. Roles with the company included Clara and Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Cecile (Dangerous Liaisons), Odile (Swan Lake), Beatrice (Ondine), pas de deux (Don Quixote) and roles in Beauty and the Beast and Perpetuum mobile. She created the title role in Ugly Duckling, Northern Ballet’s first children's ballet. Gasparini left Northern Ballet in May 2013 to dance with English National Ballet in Swan Lake in-the-round at the Royal Albert Hall and The Nutcracker. She has also danced extensively with New English Ballet Theatre, for which she created the role of Wife in Andrew McNichol’s The Kreutzer Sonata. 

Gasparini’s Royal Ballet roles have included Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Mercedes (Don Quixote), Shepherdess (The Winter's Tale), Fairy Spring, Fairy Summer and Fairy Autumn (Cinderella), Clara and Rose Fairy (The Nutcracker), Princess Florine and Fairy of the Song Bird (The Sleeping Beauty), Blue Girl (Les Patineurs), Amour (Don Quixote), Neapolitan and Prince Siegfried's Sister (Swan Lake), Princess Stephanie and Princess Louise (Mayerling), Justine (Frankenstein), Zulme (Giselle), Vera (A Month in the Country) and in ‘Emeralds’ (Jewels) and roles in Danses concertante, Les Rendezvous, Light of Passage, Woolf Works, Rhapsody, Scènes de ballet, Solo Echo, Viscera and The Dante Project. She has created roles in Flight Pattern, Untouchable, Symphonic Dances, Corybantic Games, Woolf Works and Chencha in Like Water for Chocolate. Her awards include gold medal in the 2003 Youth America Grand Prix. 

Kevin was a First Artist of The Royal Ballet, he now teaches Pre-Professional level at the Royal Ballet School. He trained at Elmhurst School for Dance and The Royal Ballet Upper School and graduated into the company in 2007. He was promoted to First Artist in 2014. 

Since joining The Royal Ballet he has performed in a vast repertoire of roles from heritage, classical and new works. Some of these roles include Hilarion and pas de six (Giselle), Demetrius (The Dream), Stueart-Powell (Enigma Variations), The March Hare (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Slaves (Sylvia), Lead Fakir (La Bayadère), Dancing Gents (Manon), Puss in Boots (The Sleeping Beauty), Steward (The Winter’s Tale), Harlequin (The Nutcracker), Corybantic Games, La Sylphide, Asphodel Meadows, DGV, Rhapsody, Scènes de ballet, Voluntaries, Obsidian Tear, Woolf Works and Twyla Tharp’s The Illustrated Farewell. 

He has worked with many acclaimed choreographers throughout his career and has created roles in productions for the company such as Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games, The Winter’s Tale, Aeternum, Like Water for Chocolate and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project and Carbon Life, Liam Scarlett’s Age of Anxiety, Sweet Violets, Symphonic Dances, Frankenstein and Swan Lake, Hofesh Schecter's Untouchable and Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern, as well as other roles created by Arthur Pita, Kim Brandstrup and Charlotte Edmonds. He also recently completed The Royal Ballet School’s Diploma in Dance Teaching.