Louisa Hassell

Available to sponsor

 

1) What is your favourite ballet/or role?
When I first joined, the company performed Giselle. I felt so happy to be employed as a dancer and it’s such a beautiful ballet to dance. I loved Act 2, there is such a feeling of girl power.

 

2) What is your favourite meal/type of food?
I’ll eat anything except olives! I love cooking and experimenting. When I’m out for dinner and mussels are on the menu, I always order them.

 

3) What made you take up dance as a career?
I went to ballet classes when I was four and just kept going. I started doing festivals when I was ten and loved smiling at the audience and dancing to beautiful music.

 

4) What is your greatest extravagance?
Good food and wine. We cook a lot at home.

 

5) Who is your hero or heroes?
Dancing can be quite a self-centred job. I have a great deal of respect for anyone whose job is helping other people.

 

6) Who would you be on Stars in Your Eyes?
I would be Gwen Stefani. Her style is very original and unique and I think she always looks amazing. I’d love to have the courage to dress like her and I’d love to have a voice like hers.

 

7) If you could be stuck in a lift with anyone, who would it be?
It would be my fiancé, Andy Ross.

 

8) What has been your favourite venue to perform in?
My favourite venue was in Portugal. We performed Carmen in an outside theatre in Sintra. It was warm and there was a mist on the hills.

 

9) What type of music do you like to unwind to?
I like house music, especially Hed Kandi. It’s very uplifting and reminds me of great times on holiday and always puts me in a good mood.

 

10) Who would you like to play you in the film of your life?
I would like Scarlett Johanssen to play me. I think she is a lovely actress and beautiful.

 

11) Do you have any hobbies?
I love reading books; I’m really into anything by James Patterson or Martina Cole. I’ve joined a library to save some money! I love having an afternoon free to read a good book and have a glass of white wine!!

 

Biography

 

 

Born in Leicester, Louisa trained at the Parkewood School of Dance in Southampton and at the Central School of Ballet in London. In 1988 she joined the Royal Ballet Junior Associate Scheme and in 1989 appeared with The Royal Ballet in MacMillan’s The Prince of The Pagodas.  Graduating from Central in 1998, Louisa performed with Ballet Central on their National Tour. 

 

Joining Scottish Ballet in 1999, Louisa has performed in Page’s Cheating, Lying, Stealing, The Nutcracker, Nightswimming Into day, Cinderella (Stepsister), Fearful Symmetries and The Sleeping Beauty (Pina),Bournonville’s La Sylphide, York’s Rapture, Darrell’s Giselle, Five Rückert Songs and Tales of Hoffmann, North’s Romeo and Juliet, Carmen and The Snowman (The Music Box Ballerina),Ashton’s The Two Pigeons and Façade, Davies’ White Man Sleeps, Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, Episodes and Rubies, Pastor’s In Light And Shadow, Loosmore’s Chasing Ghosts and Forsythe’s Artifact Suite.

 

Quotes

 

The Sleeping Beauty (2007-2008)

.Observer, 16 December 2007 – Carabosse (Limor Ziv) and her two mutant daughters (Louisa Hassell and Sophie Laplane) steal the show. Ziv is a dead ringer for Amy Winehouse, hair included, and Hassell and Laplane evince a creepy sexiness.

 

CINDERELLA 2006/2007
.Turriff Advertiser, 23 Feb 2007 – The dancers, especially he ugly stepsisters Kara McLaughlin and Louisa Hassell take to [their roles] with gusto, making them favourites with the audience.