Charlotte is in for a nasty surprise when Emmy makes a new friend, Tom. For Tom's big sister, Icky Nicky, is in Charlotte's ballet class - and they hate each other! But when their sisters' fighting starts to get in the way of Tom and Emmy's friendship, they must find a way of bringing their warring siblings together, and ballet could be just the thing they need. And to Charlotte and Nicky's surprise, they soon find they have a lot more in common than they had realised.
Emmy loves ballet but she isn't old enough to dance in her sister Charlotte's class. Then one day when she comes to watch the lesson she can't resist joining in. Before anyone realises, Emmy's doing pli-s at the barre - and she's doing them very well! Most of the class are thrilled by her dancing, but Charlotte isn't quite so comfortable about having a little sister who seems set to steal her limelight. When Emmy is given the coveted role of Spring in the annual show it seems the final straw for Charlotte, but then her teacher helps her to understand that although Emmy is very talented for her age, she can't dance as well as Charlotte, and Charlotte ought to feel proud that Emmy has learnt so much from watching her talented big sister.
The Real Nureyev is an intensely personal, under-the-skin depiction of ballet's greatest hero. Written by Carolyn Soutar, Nureyev's stage manager at the London Coliseum during the 1980s, it focuses on the last, intensely creative, six-year period in the dancer's life - when he was still at the peak of his powers, yet just a few years away from an untimely death.The author draws upon her own experiences and - exclusively - those of Robert Tracy, Nureyev's lover and then companion during the last 14 years of his life; Bill Akers and Roger Myers, who first met and worked with Nureyev in 1962 in Australia; and Yoko Morishita, Prima Ballerina with the Matsuyama Ballet Company, Tokyo, who partnered Rudolf for most of the '80s. From Akers and Myers, we learn of the changes in Nureyev: from a young man eager to learn, searching for perfection in a body he believed to be flawed, to the knowledgeable and difficult superstar that he would become. They quash the rumours and set the record straight on Nureyev's relationship with Margot Fonteyn, while Morishita describes what it was like to dance with Nureyev, recalling their first meeting, their friendship both on and offstage and his pride, care and attention when teaching her certain roles. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, yet always deeply human, this is an intimate insider story of what the man himself was really about. It combines unique first-person accounts and reminiscences of the two aspects of his life which have been veiled from public view: Nureyev the man and lover, and Nureyev the professional at work.
Louisa is horrified when she gets the news that Miss Matting's Ballet school has to close down. The only other school in town is notoriously hard to get into, and very expensive! Phoebe, Tony and Louisa all audition and the others soon receive letters telling them their fate. But there is no letter for Louisa. Is this the end of her dancing career?
Louisa is horrified when she gets the news that Miss Matting's Ballet school has to close down. The only other school in town is notoriously hard to get into, and very expensive! Phoebe, Tony and Louisa all audition and the others soon receive letters telling them their fate. But there is no letter for Louisa. Is this the end of her dancing career?