Ballerina Vianca Palacios used to have a rule for herself: She would not date a fellow dancer.
Too much drama, she said.
Then she met Zachary Bennett when they were both students at the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School in Florida.
“I went from saying I’ll never date a dancer to marrying one,” Palacios, a Ballet San Antonio soloist, laughing.
The couple, who have been together since 2018 and wed in 2024 in her native Puerto Rico, have danced with Ballet San Antonio since 2019. They’ve gotten to pair with one another in several productions – they were the Snow Queen and the Snow King in “The Nutcracker” last December – but they won’t be in each other’s arms for the upcoming staging of “Cinderella.” He plays a cavalier, and she is alternating between playing Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsister.
Working on the ballet also means that their Valentine’s Day will be pretty low-key. The holiday falls less than a week from opening night, so they will spend the day in rehearsals.
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Her day will be especially packed. In addition to rehearsing her own parts, she will oversee the rehearsals for children in the show. And she has some private lessons scheduled, too.
“The 14th is going to be a very busy day,” she said. “But we did talk about making it a pizza night, just making our own pizza. Something very calming and relaxing because I’ll be so tired.”
Ballet San Antonio company members Zachary Bennett and Vianca Palacios, who are married in real life, will perform as part of the company’s upcoming staging of “Cinderella.” (Brenda Bazán/Contributor)
If Palacios and Bennett can catch a glimpse each other dancing while they work in the studio, that’ll add a zip of romance to their day.
“I just feel so much joy watching her,” said Bennett, 30, a Floridian who started dancing at 16 . “She’s such an incredible dancer and such an incredible performer. It feels freeing for me, even if I’m standing still.”
When she watches her husband dance, Palacios said, she feels that she is seeing his most authentic self.
“He has such a pure soul and such a gentle character that whenever he’s out there doing whichever role he is assigned to do, you can tell that’s him,” said Palacios, 27, who started taking dance lessons at the age of 3 and never stopped. “He’s an artist. He was designed to do this.”
As much as they love watching each other dance, they’d rather dance together. That’s how their romance began. A teacher at the Sarasota school where they met set a love story on them. In the piece, Palacios falls for Bennett before he falls for her, and by the time he realizes she’s the one, she is done.
Husband and wife dancers Vianca Palacios and Zachary Bennett, who are both part of Ballet San Antonio, will dance in the company’s upcoming production of “Cinderella.” (Brenda Bazán/Contributor)
“It did not end on a happy note,” Bennett said. “There is a lesson in this.”
In real life, they both got on the same page pretty quickly. They got to know each other working on the piece about the doomed couple, and within a few months, they were dating. Then they had to part for about a year when Bennett got a year-long position with Milwaukee Ballet II, the Wisconsin company’s training troupe.
Cinderella
What: Ballet San Antonio will perform the fairy tale ballet “Cinderella,” choreographed by Conny Mathôt.
When: Opens Feb. 20. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 21 and 2 p.m. Feb. 22.
Where: H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle.
Details: $22.75-$147, tobincenter.org.
It was tough being apart for so long. But that story does end on a happy note. After reuniting, they sent separate audition packets to various ballet companies, and both won positions with the San Antonio Ballet.
“That’s one in a million,” she said. “We were not expecting it. We got very lucky with Ballet San Antonio – they loved us both, and we loved them!”
Besides “The Nutcracker,” they’ve gotten to dance together in “Alice in Wonderland” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the company.
The closeness of their personal relationship helps with their dancing, and vice versa.
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“Some of the craziest stuff that you can see on stage happens because the people have worked together so much and they trust each other and they’re willing to take some risk that normally they wouldn’t,” said Bennett, who is part of Ballet San Antonio’s corps de ballet. “If I’m told to throw her absolutely as high as I can, I can do it because I trust her completely and she trusts me.”
“It’s special,” she said. “It connects with everything that we do together, regardless of if it’s dancing or going out on a date, It’s kind of like a superpower telepathy.”
This article originally published at ‘One in a million’ auditions brought this couple to Ballet San Antonio.