OAKWORTH teenager Hollie Smith has reached the last five in the ballet section of this year’s BBC Young Dancer of the Year.
TV audiences can see the final on Friday May 3 when Hollie, 18, takes on the cream of the UK’s rising dance talent.
If she comes out on top she will compete later in May against winners of the street dance, South Asian dance and contemporary sections.
Hollie, who is studying to be a professional dancer at leading ballet school Tring Park, described the BBC audition as “scary”.
She said: “I’ve never done a solo at such a level before, in front of directors of ballet companies. I want to make an impression and I only had one shot.”
Hollie, a long-time pupil of Keighley’s Sara Packham Theatre School, is a seasoned performer in professional ballets, musicals and pantomimes in West Yorkshire
She will return to the Alhambra Theatre in May to perform in the world premiere of leading choreographer Matthew Bourne’s radical new version of Romeo and Juliet.
Hollie began dancing at the age of three.
The final will be screened on BBC4 on Friday May 3 at 7.30pm.
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