Viola Pantuso

American Dancer Viola Pantuso is a First Artist of the Royal Ballet. She joined The Royal Ballet as an Aud Jebsen Young Dancer from the start of the 2021/2022 Season and entered the Company as an Artist in the 2022/23 Season and was promoted to First Artist in 2024.

Pantuso was born in Chicago, Illinois and began her ballet studies at the age of three. Her early training took place at the Joffrey Academy of Dance and at The Ellison Ballet Professional Training Program in New York City. During her time in New York she was awarded the silver prize at the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) NYC Finals. In 2017 she joined The Royal Ballet School at White Lodge. During her time at the Upper School she was awarded First Prize in the Lynn Seymour Competition for Expressive Dance.

After joining The Royal Ballet, she represented the Company at the 2023 International Competition for the Erik Bruhn Prize.

Professional performances while a student included The Joffrey Ballet’s La Bayadère, Othello and The Nutcracker and American Ballet Theatre's production of Le Corsaire. While at The Royal Ballet School, she performed the main role in Elite Syncopations and danced in Ashley Page’s Mephisto Waltz for her graduation performance. She also performed in Liam Scarlett’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Opera House and in Didy Veldman’s Is To Be in the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland.

 Pantuso's repertory with The Royal Ballet include Perdita (The Winters Tale); Clara, Vivandière, Mirliton (The Nutcracker) and roles in Mayerling, Manon, Les Rendezvous, The Dream, Everyone Keeps Me and The Dante Project (The Wrathful). She created roles in McGregor's Untitled, 2023 and Figures in a Landscape, Jessica Lang's Twinkle and Pam Tanowitz’s Secret Things.