Qld Ballet dancer D’Arcy Brazier shares how he proposed

Queensland Ballet first company artist D’Arcy Brazier has revealed the unconventional response his girlfriend had when he dropped to one knee to propose to her.

When the ballet dancer met the occupational therapist it was love at first sight – for one of them.

Queensland Ballet first company artist D’Arcy Brazier knew instantly that Joanne Dela Pena was “pure sunshine” and he “just had to have her in my life for as long as possible”.

Dela Pena needed to be convinced – “her friends had to pep talk her into dating me again”, Brazier tells Qweekend – but by the third date she realised he was “absolutely sweet” and deserved her attention.

D’Arcy Brazier and Joanne Dela Pena. Picture: Steve Pohlner

The Annerley couple became engaged in January – three years after meeting on dating app Hinge – but the proposal didn’t quite go to plan. Brazier, 28, had decided to pop the question in August this year but when Dela Pena, 27, advised she was getting braces in February, he needed to fasttrack things.

“I knew Jo wouldn’t be feeling her best so I had to act quickly,” he says.

The pair had already arranged a trip to Japan and so – with a 1.8 carat diamond engagement ring from Cullen Jewellery in Brisbane’s Queen St stuffed into a pair of compression socks – Brazier hatched a new plan.

“We had just arrived in Ikaho (a hot springs town in Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo) and I suggested we walk 365 steps up to a shrine and red bridge,” he says.

“But Jo was in a bit of a bad mood because we’d had to push our luggage through the snow and we were tired.”

When they reached the shrine, Dela Pena walked around taking photos while Brazier set up his phone to capture video.

“I called Jo to the bridge and she said, ‘Why are you recording this?’ and I said, ‘We need to.’

D’Arcy Brazier and Joanne Dela Pena. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“Then I dropped to one knee and she screamed, ‘noooooo’, and ran away.”

Upon reflection, Brazier likens it to “when you come home and your dog gets really excited and runs around in circles”.

Dela Pena, born in Auckland to Filipino parents and raised in Brisbane since age six, puts it this way: “I was in shock, my first reaction was, ‘Oh my God, what do I do?’”

But she quickly came back to the bridge, Brazier asked again and got the answer he wanted.

The artist, who has been with Queensland Ballet for eight years and impressed as lead rooster in Christopher Bruce’s Rooster in 2023, fell into ballet as a child after watching his younger sister Daisy (now 24) in dance concerts.

“Ballet didn’t really interest me then, but I had a huge crush on a girl my age who danced so I started and worked my way into jazz,” he explains.

“I never really thought of it as a career opportunity until about 17 when I was finishing school (Kelvin Grove State College).

D’Arcy Brazier and Joanne Dela Pena. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“By that point, ballet was actually pretty fun – it was more than syllabus work and gave me a sense of freedom and pushing the limits of what you can do – the goal of unattainable perfection really appealed.” Brazier is candid when he says: “My body is not naturally attuned to ballet, I don’t have the best shaped legs and feet in the world.

“So I leaned more towards contemporary- style movement – the acrobatic nature of it is kinder on my body but, for me, knowing ballet has this impossible challenge and I’m never going to be good enough is way too alluring.”

As for Dela Pena, she loves being an occupational therapist because of the stories patients, at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, tell her and her ability to make a difference.

Asked what she loves about her fiance, she says: “It’s the small stuff; he does things to look after me without me even knowing, like filling up my water bottle or making breakfast.”

The couple plans to wed in 2026.