A young ballet dancer who has trained in Abingdon has been selected out of a field of 1,000 teenagers to join the National Youth Ballet.

Miriam Orcutt, 15, of Marston Road, Oxford, has been dancing for almost half her life and already shows the dedication that she must put in to achieve her dream of turning professional.

Miriam OrcuttFollowing her successful audition for the National Youth Ballet, she will perform Hansel and Gretel in Stoke-on-Trent, Croydon and Sadler's Wells next month.

Since moving to Oxford from Vancouver, Canada, at the age of 12, Miriam has trained five times a week with The Oxford Academy of Dance, Tetlow-Hulme School of dance in Abingdon and the Julian Rose School of Dance in Henley-on-Thames.

She said: "I was delighted when I got through the audition, then I trained in Kent and that was excellent.

"I want to turn professional when I'm 16 and then I will have to train for up to seven hours a day.

"The only thing I'm worried about is my height - I'm 5ft 6in which is tall for a dancer but Darcy Bussell is 5ft 7in tall so I hope I don't grow any more."

**Picture: Jon Lewis