Poulton ballet dancer wins ‘gold dust’ award to fund £69k tuition

Isabelle Hirst, 16, of Ladybower Lane, Poulton, dedicated her life to dancing from the age of four and trained locally at the Joanne Wilson Ballet and Dance School.

In September she was offered a place at the Northern Ballet School in Manchester - but was unable to afford the extravagant fees needed to attend, which would have added up to £69,000 for three years tuition.

But after proving to ballet school bosses that her skills were en pointe in an audition earlier this year, she was offered a Dance and Drama Award to pay for her advanced training.

She said: “I have always wanted to be a ballerina from the age of six, and when I was 15 I knew I wanted to go off to ballet school.

“After three years of training, I’d like to try to get into a company and perform on stage and share that with people and put a smile on their faces.

“Ballet is really difficult because it’s so technical. Everything has to be very precise, but also look effortless at the same time.”

Isabelle will start at the ballet school in September.

Her dance teacher Jo Wilson said: “I’m really proud of her. She came to me a beautiful dancer anyway, but she had to work on her technique. We have sorted them out now and she had a great audition and was awarded a DaDA, which is like gold dust.

“We are absolutely over the moon and it has taken so much pressure off her family as well.

“There’s not as much funding as there used to be for the arts, so she must have done amazingly. It’s only the elite that get them.”