American dancer Beatriz Stix-Brunell is a soloist at the Royal Ballet in London, but her high profile career path did not follow the predictable school-to-company route.

Beatriz grew up in New York city and began her training at the School of American Ballet. At 12 she auditioned for the Paris Opera Ballet School, being one of the “petits rats” for a year and ranked top of her class. After that she returned to New York and learnt privately with Fabrice Herrault.

British contemporary ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon put Beatrix on the professional map when she joined his company Morphoses when she was just 14. In 2010 he resigned and is now Artistic Associate at the Royal Ballet, where Beatrix joined as an Artist also in 2010. He premiered a full length ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 2011 – the first at the Royal for over 20 years. Alice, the original protagonist in Lewis Carroll’s novel is a child, in the ballet, however, she is a teenager beginning her first romance.

She performed a principal role for the first time when she stepped in to play Alice, at the last minute after a principal was injured last season. She revived the role this season which complete a sell out run this month.

Beatriz signed this sketch of her as Alice at the Royal Opera House this week.