Dancing through the pain barrier; PREPARING FOR THE NUTCRACKER WITH THE BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET.

Byline: BY LORNE JACKSON

EVERYBODY is very excited - a superstar of the future is dancing at the Hippodrome.

It remains unclear whether the performer can pirouette, do the splits, or even squeeze into a pair of ballet pumps.

But who cares?

After all, this dancer has many other considerable attributes.

Claws. Fur on his back. A long, waggy tail.

The dancing dog has arrived - accompanied by an ambitious owner - to audition for the next series of Britain's Got Talent, a show based around the ego of Simon Cowell and the desperation of a fame-hungry public.

Besides the dancing dog, there is a long queue of woeful warblers, fumbling jugglers and scorched fire-eaters.

But talent? You won't find it here.

Real talent isn't about desperation.

It requires discipline.

The discipline you will find in this very same building, where the Birmingham Royal Ballet are in rehearsals for their classic Christmas spectacular, The Nutcracker, which has just opened.

Although the dancers haven't yet hit the stage, they are already hard at work, in their well-equipped gym at the back of the Hippodrome.

Ballet dancers may seem to be ethereal, shimmering creatures.

But in truth they are gritty athletes, with bodies honed to cope with daily punishment and pain.

In the gym, dancers pump iron, bend and flex, wince as their powerful muscles are massaged.

Principle dancer Ambra Vallo, who plays the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker, initially trained to be a sportswoman.

She was one of Italy's most promising gymnasts, before a youthful back injury put paid to her career.

At the relatively late age of 12, she took up ballet.

"At first I thought 'How stupid'," she grins. "All those little girls thinking they were fairies. I thought they were mad!

"But then I became more passionate about ballet, and, of course, I realised how much work went into each show."

Since then, Ambra has been involved in a multitude of stunning performances for the Birmingham Royal Ballet - and has had to contend with many painful injuries as well.

"Most dancers are in constant pain," she explains. "But you just learn to ignore it and dance on through it. You must have a very high pain threshold.

"For one performance I had to dance on high heels, and ended up dislocating my toe. It popped right out and was actually facing inwards, towards me."

Ambra was taken to hospital, where she waited six hours before being treated.

"I'm not very good with needles, so the doctor had to work on it without an anaesthetic," she grimaces.

"Afterwards, I was told that it would be six weeks before I could dance again. I was back on stage in five days."

This is the kind of commitment, pride and passion towards a vocation that the fame-hungry wannabes from Britain's Got Talent could never appreciate, or hope to replicate. Tortured toes and six hours of pain in a hospital corridor - that is what it truly means to be an artist.

Behind the glamour there is plenty of groaning.

Groaning is also what I find on the Hippodrome stage, where the senior stage manager Diana Childs is trying to crack a very big nut - as in Nutcracker.

With an ever present walkie-talkie, she is constantly barking orders to the staff.

Lights don't work. Diana sorts it out.

Sets don't move. Diana figures it out.

As she talks, scenery shifts and morphs.

Giant fir trees fire off like rockets into the darkness above; walls revolve, revealing hefty stone hearths.

Mechanical mice whizz back and forth.

"I'm working with 80 people backstage," says Diana. "There are actually more staff in my team than on the stage dancing.

"Before the first show, everybody must know exactly what they are doing.

"There has to be meticulous planning because we are just one little mistake away from a big disaster."

And have there ever been any major disasters in the Nutcracker?

"Once a silk curtain didn't trip - and that meant the end of the performance," she says. "But luckily that was the only time."

CAPTION(S):

STARS: Ambra Vallo as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Dominic Antonucci as the Prince; PREPARE: a ballet dancer gets ready backstage for her performance