How Lucky I Am to be Part of the Northern Ballet

Saturday is the 'big day' - our documentary is being broadcast on BBC2 - and I have to say I am starting to get a tad nervous. It seems so long ago that we went through the whole filming process, and soon there it will be right across the United Kingdom.

Saturday is the 'big day' - our documentary is being broadcast on BBC2 - and I have to say I am starting to get a tad nervous. It seems so long ago that we went through the whole filming process, and soon there it will be right across the United Kingdom.

Looking back over the year of filming I realised I actually learnt quite a lot about myself. And it also gave me a chance to reflect on my journey so far.

I started off at 14 doing one or two local ballet classes a week. I then joined Northern Ballet's Academy where I started to take my training more seriously. At 16 I went away to Elmhurst - Birmingham Royal Ballet's school - where I studied for three years. It was in my third year that David Nixon (Artistic Director at Northern Ballet) got in touch and asked me if I would like to come and work with the company over the Christmas period. I obviously jumped at the chance. At the end of those performances he offered me an Apprentice contract for the following season.

And now, as my second year in the company comes to and end, I realise just how lucky I am to have had the chance to train with such amazing teachers and finally join my dream company.

Being from Leeds I got to see a lot of Northern Ballet performances while I was growing up, and also going to the Academy I spent a lot of time around the dancers, which made me want to be one of them so badly. So now to be here finally dancing alongside some of my childhood role models is a dream come true.

Looking back to when I first started it makes me wonder where I would be today if I hadn't started ballet. I started off at 14 doing jazz, tap and drama and then one day my teacher suggested I should study classical ballet. I wasn't sure at all first. It took me a few days to come around to the idea of trying a class but I did and I've never looked back since. Everything else took a back seat and the ballet just kept taking over everything.

Since joining the company I have realised there is a lot more going on than what the audience sees when they watching a performance. Growing up I always knew this career was going to be tough and hard work but I got a real eye opener.

It's not just the physical side, but also the mental. Every day as a dancer we are striving for perfection and obviously as we all know perfection is virtually impossible to achieve. So that constant battle is quite hard mentally and can be quite exhausting.

Also at school you are very much looked after and in a way wrapped in cotton wool, but when you get in to a company dance is your job. You have to learn to be a lot more independent and be able to correct yourself and know when you're doing something not quite right and be able to push yourself. Northern Ballet is a special company as the staff here are very hands on with the dancers. I was amazed when I first came that the staff knew every single dancer's body perfectly. They know your strengths, weaknesses, good side, bad side, better foot, higher leg. It's quite incredible that they take so much care over their dancers.

A big issue for any company is obviously funding and of course with the recent funding cuts Northern Ballet's funding got axed quite a bit. The day we were supposed to find out the result I felt so sick it was unreal. I was an apprentice at the time so any cuts could have really affected me. We got told one of the ways we could possibly save money would be to cut back of the amount of dancers we have, and me being brand new was terrifying.

After a long year of doing everything we could, fundraising, charity events and public performances we managed to raise a really good amount of money and were able to keep the number of dancers that the company should have for the next year.

Hearing this news was literally the best feeling in the world. People sometimes don't realise that ballet for us isn't just a job, it's our whole life. That's why this whole thing means so much to us.

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