Darcey Bussell began her dance training at the Charlotte School, a  performing arts school in London. When she was 13, she moved to the Royal Ballet Lower School, an international ballet school. At 16, she went on to the Royal Ballet Upper School. Then, in 1987,  she joined the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. While she was there, she was in multiple school productions. Bussell was still at school when the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan had noticed her and he wanted her for the lead role in his ballet (The Prince of the Pagodas to Benjamin Britten's music) in 1988. That led her to the Royal Ballet. A year after, she was promoted to principal dancer. She has been many lead roles since then including Masha in Winter Dreams, Princess Rose in The Prince of the Pagodas, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette in Swan Lake, Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Manon in L'histoire de Manon, and Giselle in Giselle. All together, she performed more than 80 different roles and 17 roles were created for her.She has been a guest artist at the Paris Opera Ballet School and the Royal Ballet School and multiple other ballet schools. She retired in 2007.