WHEN Ella Rose Churchill started taking dance lessons in her hometown of Portland at the age of three, her parents never expected that 13 years later she would be heading overseas to study at one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world.

Ella Rose has always loved the stage and did her first solo ballet performance at The Hamilton Eisteddfod at only four years old, however, it was at the age of 11 that her ambitions became clear, and she set her sights on becoming a professional classical ballerina.

“I love ballet because it’s so hard to be perfect and I love that you can continuously strive to be exceptional,” she said.

“I get to see the joy in the audiences faces … it’s just an amazing feeling being on stage.”

Ella Rose’s parents, Haley and Shannon Churchill, noticed her talent and dedication to dance straight away, and did all they could to help her achieve her dream and expand her ballet skills.

In March, Ella Rose was sitting on an apartment bed in Switzerland while on a European audition tour with her mother, when she got the phone call that her dream was coming true - she had secured a spot in the Associate Degree Program with the Dutch National Ballet Academy, one of the world’s best ballet training facilities.

“It was amazing, especially when we knew there were only 12 places available in the whole world,” Ella Rose said.

“We both started crying happy tears.

“It’s always been my dream school.”

The journey to reach this point has been one filled with years of training and hard work, with Ella Rose moving to The Hamilton and Alexandra College in Grade 5 to be closer to the Hamilton Dance Company, where she was taking private after-school classes and learning from Angela Magill Ralson, who danced with The Australian Ballet.

At the same time, Ella Rose was attending extra dance classes in Ballarat and Melbourne, with her parents travelling 1700 kilometres a week so she could receive the best training possible.

Ella Rose’s talent and hard work saw her shine during her time at the Hamilton Dance Company, where she danced the lead in two of their end of year performances, taking on the role of Kitri in Don Quixote, and the role of a sugar plum fairy in The Nutcracker.

She also experienced success at The Hamilton Eisteddfod where she won solo competitions and a senior classical ballet scholarship at the age of 14, at the Alana Haines Australasian Awards in New Zealand where she made the quarter finals out of 400 dancers, and when performing at The Sydney Eisteddfod where she made the semi-finals.

When Ella Rose was 14, Mr and Ms Churchill knew she needed to become a full-time dancer if she wanted to achieve her dream, which led to her moving to Brisbane where she was training 30 hours a week for the past two years at Classical Coaching Australia, all while completing high school by distance education.

The next step for Ella Rose was to attend a top-tier ballet school overseas, and in March she went with her mother to Europe for in-person auditions at ballet schools across five different countries, where she was one of 12 girls selected to start the Associate Degree program at the Dutch National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam in August.

Ella Rose said being selected for the program was a dream come true and made all the long hours of training worth it.

“I’m so excited and overjoyed,” she said.

“It’s what I’ve worked for since I was three-years-old.

“We will train six days a week, Monday to Saturday, and do about six hours a day, including ballet classes, pointe, character, and conditioning classes.

“The hard work starts now.”

Ms Churchill said it was a “fantastic opportunity” for Ella Rose, and she and her husband were “exceptionally proud”.

“For her to have got the spot in the top tier school is all we could ever dream of,” she said.

“She’s always had this amazing drive and she’s never ever failed in her determination to become a professional.

“I’d say, ‘what if ballet doesn’t work’, and she’d put her hand up and say, ‘I don’t want to hear it’.”

In August, Ella Rose will travel to Amsterdam with her family, where they will leave her to begin her training.