A 16-year-old teenage girl from the English town of Watford has been selected as only the fourth Brit in history to train at the Bolshoi ballet in Moscow.
Natalie Carter was plucked from obscurity when a former Russian dancer spotted her performing at her local ballet school.
Despite being nervous, Carter was ready to take the challenge head on.
Natalie Carter said, "This opportunity, it's not something you let fear get in the way of. It's definitely something I have to do,"
Her mother said while they were prepared, they didn't want their little girl to leave the nest just yet.
Natalie’s mother, Sue Carter said, "I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact she'll be perfectly looked after. It's just going, the build-up to going."
But it's not going to be easy.
The rigorous training schedule of the academy will require her to train 40 hours of ballet a week.
Dmitri Gruzd Yev, senior principal of English National Ballet said, "It will be very hard as well because there will be so many young dancers around. She will have to push very hard."
Carter hopes to break the "Bolshoi Curse", which is, no British girl who has previously trained at the Academy has gone on to train a second year.
(CCTV August 28, 2009)
