| Biography | Ursula Hageli was born in Zurich and trained at the Zurich Opera House before joining The Royal Ballet School at White Lodge and Upper School. Her performing career has spanned over thirty years during which she has danced most of the classical ballerina roles world-wide.
Her professional career began at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York with the Stuttgart Ballet, aged 17, where she soon danced soloist roles, touring coast to coast across the USA, Japan and Russia. At the age of 20 she was invited to join Northern Ballet as principal dancer in the role of Cinderella, where she danced all the leading roles in the repertoire and where new ballets were created for her.
Since 1977 she has held her Professional Dancers Teaching Diploma with the Royal Academy of Dance. In 1980 she joined London City Ballet as principal dancer, dancing her first Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, coached by Svetlana Beriosova. It was during this time she met Richard Slaughter and together they founded Ballet Creations. With Ballet Creations she appeared in Portrait of Pavlova recreating the legendary dancers most famous roles. She also created the title roles in full-length productions of The Little Mermaid, Cleopatra and Cinderella.
She was a Principal Dancer with The Royal Ballets Education Unit touring schools and colleges for three years. Pursuing her interest in work with young people she was Principal Dancer and Associate Choreographer for the English Youth Ballet and in April 2005 she joined The Royal Ballet as Ballet Mistress. |