Marianela
Nuñez

Benois de la Danse nominee

Argentine dancer Marianela Nuñez is a Principal of The Royal Ballet 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.

She joined The Royal Ballet School in 1997 and the next year graduated into the Company. After 18 months she was promoted to First Soloist and in 2002 to Principal, 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, Jiří Kylián, Kenneth MacMillan, Wayne McGregor, Ashley Page, Jerome Robbins, Liam Scarlett, Glen Tetley, Will Tuckett, Antony Tudor and Christopher Wheeldon.

Nuñez's awards include Best Female Dancer at the Critics' Circle Dance Awards in 2006 and 2013. 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 in 'Diana and Actaeon' (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012). She is married to Royal Ballet Principal Thiago Soares, who proposed between curtain calls for a performance of The Sleeping Beauty in which he had danced Prince Florimund to Nuñez's Princess Aurora.

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