Chantelle Pianetta’s Unconventional Path to Principal Dancer, Two Decades in the Making
After performing Sugar Plum last year, I listened as my director at Golden State Ballet, Raul Salamanca, came onstage to praise a dancer in the company—something he’d never done before. I wondered who he was talking about. Eventually, I realized it was me. I couldn’t believe it: I was being promoted to principal dancer. The 19-year-old me that had left ballet behind would never have imagined I’d be here.
From Promising to Struggling
In 2002, I danced George Balanchine’s Tarantella at my home studio, Contra Costa Ballet Centre, and I fell in love with the fast tempo and demanding technique.
I left home for School of American Ballet that year, at age 14, and soon danced in the corps of Serenade with other students in a special performance with New York City Ballet. I felt like I’d made it to where I wanted to be.
In my second year, I danced featured roles in SAB’s annual Workshop Performances and teachers were highly encouraging of me, saying that I had a strong chance of getting into NYCB the next year.
Reaching the most advanced level, I gave everything, dancing two leading roles in Workshop. I thought it was my time—but the company only took men and two tall women that season.
The disappointment derailed me in a way I hadn’t expected. I had been hyperfocused on this goal for so long, and now I didn’t know whether I could trust my own hard work or even the feedback from my teachers.
I was 17, a year younger than most in the class, so I decided to return for another year in the advanced level and try again. But I didn’t have the same fight in me. I wasn’t invited into the company that fall when more apprentices were taken, and auditions didn’t bring any other offers.
I took time off to seek treatment for disordered eating and depression, returning to SAB for the latter half of my third year in the advanced level at age 19, but it felt like the dream had slowly slipped away. Having been co-valedictorian in high school, I decided to study neuroscience at Columbia University. Suddenly, I was just a regular 20-year-old, and that was good for me.
Back in the Swing of Things
But I hadn’t left dancing behind completely. Towards the end of my time at SAB, my therapist said she was taking swing-dancing lessons and recommended I try it. It was a relaxed atmosphere, with people of all ages and levels simply enjoying dancing together. It felt good to move without scrutinizing every little thing and to meet people outside the ballet world.
I joined the swing-dance club at Columbia, and over time, my depressive thoughts and disordered eating quieted down. Feeling like myself again, I started taking ballet classes. Two and a half years after enrolling at Columbia, I left school behind. I realized that I didn’t want to spend my time in a lab—I wanted to dance.
West Coast Calling
I went back to California and joined Company C Contemporary Ballet in the fall of 2010 through its closure in 2014, also dancing Nutcracker with Oakland Ballet each of those years. I then joined Menlowe Ballet in 2015. With Company C, I got to tour to New York City, and with Menlowe, to perform 32 fouettés onstage for the first (and only) time in the Le Corsaire pas de deux. The companies were small and mostly did contemporary work—a different career from the one I had envisioned, but I was so grateful to be dancing again.
I discovered West Coast swing during this time and was totally energized by it. I loved its more current feel and articulated, controlled technique. I danced it several nights a week after rehearsals. Swing became a second career for me in 2018 when I reached the champions division (the professional routine division that allows lifts), and I started booking weekend events where I would teach and perform. It complemented the limited weeks of ballet work, while expanding my network from a small ballet company to a worldwide swing community.
But just as balancing Menlowe Ballet with West Coast swing was taking off for me, the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt, and Menlowe Ballet closed. I wasn’t sure what my next move would be.
In 2021, my friend from SAB, Cindy Huang, asked if I would do Nutcracker with Golden State Ballet in San Diego, the company she was co-founding with her husband, Raul Salamanca. It was a week before the performances started, and I could only get there for two days of rehearsals. I danced Marzipan and Spanish in the tech and dress rehearsals, but then I got COVID and missed the performances. I still must have made a good impression, because they invited me to join the corps for the 2022–23 season.
“Coming Home”
Golden State Ballet had the repertoire I had long hoped to dance, including full-length classics and works by Jiří Kylián, Jorma Elo, and Justin Peck. I was promoted to soloist in 2024 and got to dance my first lead in a full-length ballet, Cinderella. What made the experience particularly special was that Raul choreographed it on me.
A personal milestone came a few months after my promotion to principal, when I was cast to dance the lead in Allegro Brillante. I was finally dancing Balanchine, at 38 years old, nearly 20 years after I had thought that dream was behind me. As I rehearsed the ballet, it felt like coming home, and it was such a gift. I didn’t quite make it to the finish line: I tore my calf muscle a few days before opening night and couldn’t perform. But it’s coming back to the repertory this year, and I can’t wait to have another chance.
Meanwhile, my West Coast swing work has only grown. Dancing with my husband, Joel Torgeson, we travel about 30 weekends per year to teach and perform, with trips to Barcelona, Munich, Stockholm, and Maui this year. We’ve placed in the top five at the Swing Dance U.S. Open the last four years—and we’re hoping for No. 1 this year!
As I start this season, I think back on my teen years and feel proud that, even though my career turned out very differently from what I had imagined, I created a life filled with movement. As a teacher at Golden State Ballet Academy, I encourage my students not to dwell on bad luck or mistakes; when I focused on what I couldn’t control, I felt most lost. I want them to know that if they love to dance, there isn’t just one path. There are many ways for dance to enrich your life—and you never know where one of them might lead.
