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Her legs go on for ever, she is blonde, brown eyed and is the Royal Ballet's latest entry with a bullet. Last week 19-year-old Nathalie Harrison, who has trained since the age of 11 at both the Junior and Upper Royal Ballet Schools, learned that she has landed a coveted contract at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Tipped by Head of the RBS, Gailene Stock, as the one to watch, the world is at the pink satin clad feet of super talented Nathalie.

"The whole buzz of working in Covent Garden is so inspiring", said the girl from Weybridge, Surrey, during a break in rehearsal for Swan Lake in which she danced during the Royal Ballet's visit to Russia. "It's wonderful to have the new studios just across the road from the company that's always been your goal in life. Ever since we moved here I've been flying to and fro across the bridge in and out of the Opera House and now I'm starting my professional career there. It hasn t really sunk in yet". Nathalie, who started dancing aged 5, is one of just seven budding young ballet stars to make history by taking the first walk to a glittering future with the Royal Ballet across the bridge over Floral Street from the spanking new premises of the Royal Ballet Upper School into the hallowed 19th century walls of the Opera House.

The floodlit fourth floor glass bridge, officially titled the Bridge of Aspiration but nicknamed by the students the Bridge of Perspiration, or even more irreverently the Bridge of Thighs, is now a spectacular feature of the Covent Garden area as it links the £16 million state of the art student's studio complex with the Opera House's 5th floor Royal Ballet rehearsal space. London now has at its heart one of the world's finest centres for classical ballet. "I was so inspired by moving into the new buildings", says Nathalie, "but now I can't wait to settle in across the road and get my teeth into the start of my professional career". And the Sunday Express publishes the first pictures taken inside the air-conditioned building where Nathalie's dreams came true.

Nathalie on the Bridge of Aspiration
Photograph by Dougie Morrison ©

The Queen officially opened the new premises in March 2003, but Nathalie and her companions moved in January from the Upper School's 50-year-old former headquarters in Baron's Court, West London. "It was chaos when we arrived here", remembers Nathalie. "There were no signs on the doors and there were workmen everywhere drilling and banging, but it was so exhilarating. We all wanted to be the first to dance in each studio. The competition was fierce but I was the first to do a pirouette in the Dowell Sibley Studio".

The doors open at 7.30 am to admit the 80 pupils. Classes start at 9 am but there is a great deal of extra curricular rehearsing, work on technique and partnering, particularly as this year, for the first time in the Royal Ballet's history there are the same number of boys as girls attending the school. In addition to a small practice room, there are five spacious studios, all air conditioned and flooded with natural light, no mean feat in the narrow streets of central London, with the latest digital sound and video equipment. The Linden Studio at 21x15 metres is the largest, and electronically adapts into 180-seater performance space. The top floor Academic Block has 5 classrooms as well as a fully equipped IT Centre and an audiovisual suite, while along the corridor is the gymnasium, Pilates studio and a fully fitted physiotherapy room. But the youngster's favourite space is the blue and natural wood second floor Student's Common Room. Overlooking Long Acre, the area's main drag, it is a popular place to chill after classes and sprawl across the floor watching videos, not in this setting conquerors from another Matrix, but heroes from the world's ballet companies like Russia's Irek Mukhamedov and Igor Zalensky and the Royal's own Tamara Rojo and Alina Cojocaru. "We can eat, sleep and dream ballet 24 hours a day here", says Nathalie.

The roots of the Royal Ballet Schools go back to 1931 when the company's founder, Dame Ninette de Valois, launched both her school and company at Islington's Sadler's Wells Theatre. In 1947, a year after the then named Sadler's Wells Ballet first took up residency at the Royal Opera House, the school moved to its own premises in Baron's Court, split into Junior and Upper schools with a register of 55 girls. In 1956, White Lodge, a Palladian style Royal residence in Richmond Park, began to house the junior school with 17 boys out of a total 150 students, where it remains today. The development process reached maturity last year with the new Upper School built to adjoin the Opera House in Covent Garden. But it is not just bricks and mortar that signpost the staggering success of Britain's leading dance company.

Nathalie hard at work
Photograph by Dougie Morrison ©

"People see this ballet world a bit Angelina Ballerina", says Nathalie, "all pink and fluffy, but to be a dancer nowadays, you need to be energised, dynamic, intelligent and articulate. No longer can you survive with your brains in your pointe shoes". And to prove the point she had 5 As and 1 A* among her 9 GCSEs and an A level in Art. And as a whole the school doubles the national average pass rates at an impressive 99.4% for GCSEs and 80% at A level. "We have so moved on from that little girl image", says Nathalie, "today's dancers are real people. I dance because I love it but I love all the other good things in life, too, like boys. David Ginola was in the wings the other night, he's gorgeous but a bit old for me and doesn't come near David Beckham as far as looks go. I eat loads and I love being treated at expensive restaurants". Nathalie's body weight is a fairly constant 8 stone at her height of 5' 8". And I adore champagne, I'm a champagne and smoked salmon kind of girl. My Dad's always saying my boyfriends have to start rich."

"Have I missed out on life?" she asks. "It hits you when you are about 15 just what you have committed yourself to and maybe regrets will happen when I'm older. As for now I couldn't be happier and there's nothing I'd rather be doing. I quite simply love dancing."