[1] Her ballet studies were initiated in 1954 at the age of six as a physical therapy in response to contracting polio in early childhood,[2] which was so severe she had to use an iron lung.
Her other teachers at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School included Antony Tudor and Alfredo Corvino.
[1] In the early 1980s, Panetta was the founding ballet teacher at the National Center of Contemporary Dance in France.
One of her students there was the French choreographer Jérôme Bel, who later said of her: "If a dancer would be a rocket, she would be a launchpad...Not telling you where to go, just giving you confidence in the universe.
"[1] She later was engaged to teach by the Tanztheater Wupperthal, founded in Germany by the groundbreaking choreographer Pina Bausch.