He became the student of Jean Georges Noverre in 1769, at the age of nine, and toured in Vienna, Paris and London before he was employed in the Royal Swedish Ballet at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm with his sister Julie Alix de la Fay in 1782.

Bournonville was premier dancer and ballet instructor at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm until 1792.

[1] His favourite student and dancing partner in Sweden was Charlotte Slottsberg, with whom he made a successful pair in the ballets.

It was Antoine Bournonville himself who asked to have her as his partner, after he recognized her talent as an artist and, in 1784, by his own initiative gave her a part in Les Meunieres Provencaux, which is considered to have been the starting point of Slottberg's true maturity as an artist.

[1] Charlotte Slottsberg was said to have been infatuated by his beauty, which at one occasion made her lover, Prince Charles to scream at Bournonville in his jealousy.