Kenya

Kenya's dream.

Hey. My name is Kenya Grace, I'm nineteen years old and since I was three all I've ever wanted to do is dance. When I turned six I knew I wanted to particularly focus on ballet and ever since then I've trained hard so that I could one day be scouted and fulfil my greatest desire, to be a professional ballerina and one day own my own company. 

Ballet isn't as cute as the media makes it out to be it isn't just dance recitals met with standing ovations or pink tutus and leotards that most mothers are attracted to in the beginning, forcing their kids to smile as they flash their cameras for pictures that they can store away in their photo albums and boast to their friends about how their child is special. It was never like that for me. After intensely reading books on the most successful ballerinas like Diana Vishneva, Evelyn Hart and Anna Pavlova, I realised ballet takes dedication and determination. You must adopt a high pain threshold, excellent shape, strength but also prepare to face the costs.  

At six I enrolled into a training program, this required me to audition - to which I did. My teachers always told me I had performed at a standard which was well beyond my years and excitedly took me on board ready to see what I could blossom into. The training at the school taught me the basic skills I needed, it gave me a foundation. It also offered me academics, something my father had worried about dearly. He always thought that ballet was something to do at home, a silly hobby and not a profession I could live off but with classes so small I only learnt and achieved at a higher level, teachers gave me individualised support which meant I always improved. 

Few years past and I had finished high school, I was invited to dance at open classes with a well respected dance company. At these open classes you were able to dance in front of company directors without the need of formal auditions its this exposure that makes your future more likely to take place as if a director was impressed by you, there's a chance that they would invite you to train or apprentice with their company. This is the stage I'm at now and I pray to God that by my next recital I'm scouted or my dreams will  be crushed and I'll have to work in my mother's restaurant as a waitress and watch the professionals from the TV, oh talk about torture. 

A/N 

Hello readers, thank you for reading this book so far. I understand that it isn't the most interesting of beginnings but I thought it'd be good to get to know Kenya and where she is at right now. A lot of readers may not be familiar with ballet and so I hope this helped. Please read chapter two where things get a bit more exciting!