Viola Pantuso & Ella Newton Severgnini 2024

Viola Pantuso & Ella Newton Severgnini

First Artist & Artist, The Royal Ballet

Interviewed by David Bain
American International Church, Tue 10 Oct, 2024

Our guests began by talking about Alice which they were both performing for the first time. Viola said they heard they were dancing the role by email a few weeks before the end of last season which was quite exciting. They then spoke of the rehearsal process which began after the summer break. There was so much going on, every scene was being worked on all day in the studio, and after they learned the choreography, they then started on the relationship of their character to all the other characters in the piece. It was very exciting, refining technique, working on pas de deux and solos with the help of Jillian Vanstone, a former dancer with National Ballet of Canada (NBC) who had performed the role so knew the choreography well. It was good to have someone with that first-hand experience. Viola loved working with Jillian who had worked closely with Christopher Wheeldon, which was special. There were long hours in the studio, but they created great memories to take with them on stage and for the rest of their careers. Chris is very particular, and every step has a count. It’s a difficult ballet because Alice is reacting to lots of different characters. Rehearsals were chaotic and quite difficult as it’s nice to feed off other characters so was hard to imagine them when they weren’t there. Then the whole company was in the studio and that was when it became a reality – a ‘pinch me’ moment on stage. There are sets and props and lots of material to work with and getting through the whole ballet tested their physical and mental stamina, but it was a great experience.

Ella agreed that learning the character out of context was quite challenging, but they had to know what steps were on what counts and then the excitement builds as you do the scene, start using props, until the full call when you have all the characters and see everything in context and it’s even more exciting. Costumes always help. They had four weeks in the studio with some of the props like the table for the crazy cook, and bits they needed to work on before going on stage. A week before the show they had rehearsals on stage with the crying baby.

Talking of feeling close to a character, Ella said both the Knave and Rabbit are important, the latter as Lewis Carroll is the narrator who guides her through the ballet. It’s an interesting relationship and he moves the narrative along. She really falls in love with the knave or gardener as the ballet goes on and meets lots more characters along the way. Viola loves interacting with the Rabbit, she can be cheeky with him. He secretly loves Alice and is constantly trying to save her so it’s a lovely relationship. The Knave is very romantic - it’s young love, your first crush.

Chris came for the stage calls a week before the show but otherwise they worked very closely with Samira Saidi, Jillian and Christopher Saunders who staged it. Chris went through things which were very important to him as he is super particular and made some adjustments. The ballet has been performed all over the world and some things have been lost in translation so it’s good to have him to refine the work to how it was originally intended to be portrayed. It’s interesting and a dream to work with Chris who is a great choreographer.

Ella read the book as a very young child. There have been different interpretations but Alice in Wonderlandis something she read from a very young age. Viola likewise. She said it’s an honour to portray her as everybody knows her but now, they see her differently as they have a personal relationship with her, and not a lot of people can say that. David said it is very unusual for a First Artist or Artist to be given principals roles. How does that feel? Ella said she was super grateful as it was her first season in the company and the opportunity came as a shock as it was so unexpected. She was extremely lucky to have the chance so young, and when it comes back, she will be more mature, will bring different things to the role and have a different approach. Currently her lack of experience and naivety is perhaps good for the character. Viola said it felt surreal, and she couldn’t believe it was happening although it wasn’t her first principal role which was Perdita in The Winter’s Tale. That was like being thrown in at the deep end. She’s dancing with Marcelino Sambé in Alice and he is hugely supportive, looking out for her, and you feel a connection on stage. He guides and helps her. Ella is dancing with Cesar Corrales and says it has been amazing inside and outside the studio, he is guiding her through every step of the way, she truly admires him so to have this opportunity to work with him and learn from him is wonderful and his artistry is very special.

Mixed Programme. Viola is in Pam Tanowitz’s ballet. Pam was here last week but has gone now and they ran the ballet in the studio for the first time today so it’s all pulled together. Viola was a bit confused by the choreography which is inspired by Merce Cunningham. She loves dramatic ballets like the MacMillan works. However, after working with Pam she found it interesting in that it’s emotionless, centring around positions and is very stylised. It has been a great process and Pam is a character and hopefully she will be back soon as they are on stage next week. Pam’s way of working is leaving it to the dancers to some extent. In rehearsals two weeks ago, Viola made a mistake and Pam said she loved it, let’s keep it in. It was just a random thing which is now part of the ballet. She’s very spontaneous and loves to have fun in the studio so you don’t feel you’re messing it up.

Ella isn’t in the mixed programme. Her Alices are over a long period from last Saturday’s debut to the final one on 31 October. It’s special to have the time to work on it over that period.

They are both in Wayne McGregor’s piece MaddAdam. Ella is in the third act which he already created on National Ballet of Canada. He won’t let them watch the video as he wants them to interpret in their own way. They’ve been workshopping ideas but are left to their own interpretation. Mikaela Polley is involved at present, but Wayne will come next week and start to develop the work. The core choreography is there but he is very open to their ideas which is amazing. The way you perform may be different from how a dancer in Canada might interpret it. Wayne puts the dancers at the forefront of his work and wants them to feel and look their best within his style. Viola is the character Ren, but she says you don’t go to the ballet to see the story of MaddAdam – it’s a very abstract work and you’d have to look closely to find the story within. Working with Wayne is very intense, and you have to be very alert. She was on tour last summer at Jacob’s Pillow with Sarah Lamb rehearsing a Wayne work. He will show a movement once and then you might find something different which he likes, and it takes you somewhere else and then put it all together. He is here till it is put on stage. Viola has read half of the first book so far. The story was explained to them but although the ballet is based on the narrative it’s not necessarily following it. It’s how each character finds themselves within the movements and is a work in progress with Wayne being very open to their own interpretation of the narrative. So far as music is concerned, Wayne doesn’t play the music initially, sometimes they work in silence and other times it’s completely different music from what is finally used. Viola doesn’t know why he does it. The music goes on top of the choreography at the end so perhaps it’s very fresh and his work evolves over time. Ren is an exotic dancer so to go there after Alice is a bit of a shift! After that they have Cinderella in which they are both stars, having done that two years ago.

Jacob’s Pillow. Viola said it was an incredible experience, a week with three shows a day which was brutal, but she really enjoyed although others found it exhausting. They made incredible memories; you realise you are connecting closely with others in the company as there’s a lot of stage time and it’s a great experience with pas de deux and solos which get you used to stage performances. It’s a beautiful location in a forest in the middle of Massachusetts with outside and inside stages, so for Wayne’ piece he used the barn door to open onto the outdoors and in the evening there were lights in the trees and it was an incredible moment. Viola didn’t have much of a break, only taking a week off, as she did lots of galas including at Hatch House. Ella went home to the family and went away with her mum and brother, so it was special to have that quality time with them. Then she was in and out of the Opera House doing classes and familiarising herself with Alice, but it was great to be home with family.

Going back a little, Viola spoke about her start in ballet, her time at the Joffrey Academy of Dance and Ellison Ballet Professional training programme in New York City. She won silver at the New York Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) and first prize at the Upper School in the Lynn Seymour competition for Expressive Dance. She also represented the Royal at the International Competition for the Erik Bruhn prize.

Both our guests started dancing very young. Ella was not from a ballet family. She began at the age of three when her mum took her to a little school in Winchester where she danced for fun but fell in love with it. Aged nine she joined Junior Associates (JAs) going to one class a week, then at 11 she auditioned for White Lodge. JAs is a very special programme taking you back to basics, analysing every detail as well as strengthening your body, doing Pilates, making sure muscles are being engaged correctly. They had the opportunity to go to the Opera House, they went on a tour of the costume department and to Freeds and at the age of 10 that was very exciting. They also watched productions, so it was nurturing the foundations of ballet, and it was very inspiring to a young dancer. JAs were held all over the country not just in London so were accessible to all. In Ella’s year there were about 12 girls, but by the final year a group of 15. She and one other girl went into White Lodge where she spent five years before getting a place at the Upper School.

At White Lodge you board with your year group and form a special bond. Class sizes are quite small, so academically you are very fortunate. The ballet training is very interesting. You start slowly, and in two years you’re developing as a dancer and a human being. Ella got the chance to work with the ballet company - in year 7 she was in Wayne’s Woolf Works, as one of the original children so with it coming back its full circle for her. You are surrounded by wonderful dancers you have admired for so long and for an 11-year-old that’s very exciting. Years 7 - 9 she was involved in Nutcracker, as gingerbread, mouse, and party child, and the boys were soldiers. She has grown up with it and now to dance it in the company is very special. Years 10 and 11 was focussing on GCSEs and getting into year 12 after that she was given a place in the Upper School. The school performances while at White Lodge were in the Linbury and Holland Park, an open-air theatre which was definitely a highlight. They did the company rep, Irish and Scottish dances, and young choreographers came to create works on them, so they were very fortunate.

Viola also started dancing aged three at a local ballet school where her Mum had taken her at the age of two but was told she was too young. Before White Lodge she went to the Joffrey Academy of Dance in Chicago for an after-school programme which was 90 minutes ballet and the same for contemporary, but this wasn’t enough for her. Then at the age of 11 she went to the Ellison Ballet Professional Training Programme in New York which was quite different and intense. It was all day from 0800 to 10.30 at night training in the Vaganova style. She then did her academics online for three hours late into the night before bed. Fortunately, she had, and still has, a lot of energy! Vaganova is entirely different training from the English style. It’s about getting your leg up, turned out, head to the side, port de bras very different, expansive whereas the English style is very precise and reserved in an elegant way. She had to transition into the English style at 15 when she was offered a scholarship to the Upper School. She had entered and won silver at the YAGP aged 13 and was offered scholarships with ENB to a summer school programme for a week in London. Samira Saidi, who is now coaching at the Royal, was in charge of it at the time. She offered Viola a place in the ENB school but said she would also suit the Royal so arranged an audition for her at White Lodge. It was a beautiful experience as she’d grown up with photos of it, and it seemed a magical place, and was overwhelming. She remarked that even the cushions had the Royal Ballet School logo on them! She got a place there and for the first week was extremely overwhelmed as although she was used to being away from home, she’d never boarded before. It was a different life, a different country and a different schedule and strict academic lessons which she loved. She soon made friends and in the first week had a pillow fight so knew she’d arrived! Although the first couple of days were a bit difficult, it was a new chapter and a big step. During the first classes she had to adapt as it seemed she was doing everything wrong. Doing a combination at the barre, the teacher asked why she was looking directly ahead instead of outwards so there were lots of corrections, style and training completely different and it took a while to adapt.

Year 11 at White Lodge. Asked how many of her original classmates from year 7 graduated into the Upper School, Ella said just two, though three others who came in year 9 went through as well. At the Upper School they were joined by 10 girls from all over. The first week was strange as their own training was different from the international students who had great virtuosity, had done competitions and had been exposed to amazing choreographers and environments which helped their development. It was quite a shock to see girls doing 10 pirouettes, with legs behind their ears but it’s also inspiring to see that and being exposed to it helped her grow. Having been in their own ‘bubble’ it was possible to see the way people moved and interpreted things in new ways. Her teacher was Nicola Trannah, whom she truly admires and feels a lot of her, Ella’s, improvements as a person as well as balletically are down to her. She knows how to get the best out of people and is a very special teacher. Her Upper School experience was during the pandemic. They were gearing up for the first-year assessment and then two days before they had to go home. The rest of that year was spent practising in her living room which was an interesting experience. The second year they thought they were back to normal and then it hit again so that assessment didn’t happen. It was quite stressful as you are going through the assessment process for the graduate year which helps you to get a job. For the end of year performance, they did a piece by Valentino Zucchetti who came to work with them. It was special to be back on stage with everyone. Her graduate year was chaotic but so special as she worked with the company the entire year doing Romeo and Julietand Giselle. As a student you are cover and you learn every spot. An hour and a half before one show she had a call from Phil Moseley to say you’re on in this spot which she hadn’t been learning! Altogether she did many different spots and is very grateful as it helped with her development. In Nutcracker she was snowflakes, thrown into a spot opposite Viola, and angels in Swan Lake which is strange as you feel so big in the costume. But it was so special, and Swan Lake was the production from which she got her contract.

Viola had not thought of going to the Upper School and was just grateful to be there. Comparing to White Lodge she loved it, the independence of being a big kid and able to go alone on a bus and focus on development. Nicky Trannah is an incredible teacher and helped her develop technically and artistically. She’s quite a character and would come in full of energy which motivated them to work hard, and Viola owes a lot to her so that was a highlight. You don’t understand how much you appreciate things until they are taken away from you. In her third year there was Covid when she wondered whether she should go home or stay. She stayed and spent three months in the boarding house with two other girls doing ballet in the kitchen. Coming back was very special, but your graduate year is joyous and sad and you know some of your friends won’t made it. She did Elite Syncopations on the main stage which was very exciting and a great moment in her life. David asked when she knew she’d got into the company. Viola said she was the last one to get a contract as she was injured and hadn’t done second- or third-year assessments. Finally, they heard Kevin O’Hare was coming to watch class and Viola thought this might be her chance. Everyone else had contracts, but five minutes after class Kevin came and offered her a contract. Coming back after injuries was emotionally and physically challenging but it was very special, and she was so grateful.

Both our guests had won awards at the school. Ella won the Valerie Adams Exceptional Musicality award in her final year at White Lodge, then in her graduate year won the Ashton award for which she did Thais, an Ashton pas de deux which was very special as it was performed in the house. In her second year Viola won the Lynn Seymour award for expressive dance and did Esmeralda’s solo from Act II. It was a very emotional moment in the ballet dancing on a fractured foot. Speaking of her injury she said at first, she really didn’t know how to deal with it and pushed too far as she doesn’t like missing out. She told her teacher she would do the assessment but was ridiculous as she was limping to the studio, and it was getting worse. Finally, she was in a boot, and it was very difficult when you expect to be given a contract, she had been working on her CV and auditions so the situation was hard as she couldn’t dance. The physios were very helpful and guided her through.

Ella was injured in her graduate year so didn’t do the shows which was hard, but she already had a contract. She went to the company over the summer and worked with the rehab team there. They have five physios, Pilates, gyrotonics, psychologists and Brian Maloney, who is amazing, guided her through. She was nervous as she didn’t know anyone, but they got a programme together, and she spent four weeks in the summer on rehab. It also gave her the chance to get rid of bad habits and refine her technique. Everyone came back in August and asked how she was doing. The first ballet when she came back was Mayerling which isn’t too much for the girls, so she didn’t feel she was missing out a lot. The physios are amazing and with Brian, they guided her every step of the way so she felt very fortunate. Her first role coming back after injury was a whore, which is a real ice breaker, and a dead body but it got her on stage and part of the ballet.

Viola’s first role was a towns person in Romeo and Juliet. It’s a fantastic ballet in a dream company so it was a special moment. At the first show, Gary Avis came to speak to her to welcome her. Her first major role in the company was Clara in Nutcracker. James Hay was injured so she and Daichi were together and now they have danced a lot. It was a joyous time, at Christmas, and a dream come true. Then she began Perdita rehearsals with the solo at the beginning of Act II. Chris Wheeldon who is very particular was there for the first stage call. The role has a special place in her heart, and she was dancing with her best friend, Joe Sissens.

Ella said Alice is her first real role. Last season she was covering the Neopolitan dance but there were lots of injuries and they were running out of women so she was told in the morning that she would have half an hour rehearsal with Laura Morera and was then on stage in Marianela Nuñez’s cast with an excited audience, so she was very lucky and had nine shows as she kept picking them up. It was very fortunate and exciting and such a fun dance in a ballet she truly loves.

New creations. Ella worked with Joshua Junker on his contemporary piece, Never Known, which she was very fortunate to be involved in. He is such a generous human. It was his first work on the main stage, and he has a unique way of working. Every movement is articulated, every movement has a count, and he is for ever changing things. It would take a while to get used to it, different from what they were used to, but the next day he would change it. It was so special to see Josh grow in the way he did, and she felt truly honoured to be part of it.

Viola was in Jessica Lang’s Twinkle. When Jessica played the music, it was surprising to think they’d be dancing to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star but it was a very sweet piece and they had great times in the studio. She‘s a great choreographer who creates a great space for them in which to work and develop and Viola just remembers having a very nice time during the creation process and rehearsals and once on stage it made a great memory. The costumes were beautiful, and it was a happy and joyous piece of work.

Questions. Is Wayne MacGregor’s way with music confusing? Yes, says Viola, he teaches the choreography or improvises. For Untitled he improvised for two hours, they did their own thing and then he took bits from all that and put it into his piece but without music. He then adds random music, and a week before you’re on stage he plays the actual music for them.

Ella. You won the award for musicality so how does his method work for you? It’s interesting, she said, as it allows the dancers to interpret his movement within the realms of what he wants. You don’t have time to think and analyse the music, so you have to dance in the way the music makes you feel. That’s what is so special about his work. It’s not so rehearsed to the music and it’s a very special thing to be trusted as an artist to interpret in your own way.

Asked about which ballerinas influenced her, Ella said for her Lauren Cuthbertson was always the epitome of British classical ballet. She inspired her since Day One and now she’s her Red Queen in Alice so it’s very special. Also, Francesca Hayward who had the same training and they dance in similar ways. It’s the way she interprets a character, and every movement is very beautiful.

For Viola, Alessandra Ferri is the most beautiful and emotional dancer ever. She’s always drawn to the emotion rather than extreme technicality. That’s what is special about the Royal Ballet company – every dancer is uniquely talented in their own way. Natalia Osipova is another who stands out. You don’t feel you’re watching ballet; you see her expressions but she doesn’t think of the steps or technicality and just lets go. Sometimes it seems so raw and careless, and you wonder what she is doing but it’s truly inspiring and enjoyable and you feel every step she’s dancing. Marcelino Sambé is another extremely expressive dancer and getting to know him on a personal level show how he loves the art form and what he wants to do with it. He just loves ballet.

Finally, David thanked our guests, saying it was a pleasure to interview young dancers and follow their careers over the next few decades. We have enjoyed Alice and look forward to watching them in their future roles.

Report written by Liz Bouttell and edited by Ella Newton Severgnini, Viola Pantusoi and David Bain.

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Viola Pantuso & Ella Newton Severgnini 2024

Viola Pantuso & Ella Newton Severgnini

First Artist & Artist, The Royal Ballet

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