This life - ROSEANNA LENEY & BRUNO MICCHIARDI

Two of Scottish Ballet’s principal dancers take us behind the curtain to chat about life, love and rising through the ranks

- Natasha Radmehr

In a sun-dappled studio in Glasgow, two of Scottish Ballet’s principal dancers move with liquid momentum. Outside of this rehearsal room they are Roseanna Leney and Bruno Micchiardi, but right now they are A Streetcar Named Desire’s Blanche and Alan, a married couple whose relationship will soon unravel. They are mesmerising to watch: graceful and strong, bending and swooping in easy harmony. The pair have flexed their acting chops to bring this narrative ballet to life. The intimacy between them, though? That’s real.

Roseanna and Bruno, both 30, have known each other for more than half their lives. They met at the Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge, a boarding school for young dancers, aged just 14. “I was a goody-two-shoes – the kind of person who would have loved to be head girl,” says Roseanna, who was raised in Surrey and started attending ballet classes when she was only three years old. (She had alopecia and was “super-shy and nervous” – ballet allowed her to mix with others without having to speak.)

“And I was always being a bit naughty,” adds Bruno, who grew up in Spain and began dancing when he was six. “I came to White Lodge a bit later than everyone else. I had lived a very Mediterranean lifestyle and I was a bit loud, a bit obnoxious… I was drawn to Rosi because she was the opposite of me.”

It was a Sandy-and-Danny moment, then, when the two got together, aged 15. “Yeah, I don’t think the teachers liked it,” laughs Roseanna. “They’d ask, ‘Why are you with the class clown?’ But he was charming. Annoyingly so.”