Force of one: this is Alexandra Ansanelli's season to shine. The gifted New York City ballet principal talks about her passion for dance and her determined journey to center stage.

On a spring afternoon in a ballet studio high above New York's Lincoln Center, Alexandra Ansanelli and Nilas Martins are struggling. It's their first rehearsal in the "The Man I Love" pas de deux from Balanchine's Who Cares?, and Ansanelli, who has never performed the role, can't seem to rail into Martins' arms. Nearly twenty-five minutes have passed and the rehearsal hasn't progressed much beyond their entrance.

"He catches up to you and snares you," says Merrill Ashley, a former principal with New York City Ballet who is coaching the session. "It should be like you're resisting. You fall right onto your stomach." Ansanelli tries once more as Martins extends an arm to catch her at the waist. This time, she rises out of the position too quickly. "You have to wait for him to do it," Ashley explains. "He's in charge."

Ansanelli listens carefully, and nods. Ashley asks if she wants to move on to the next section. "It's up to you," she says, "go back of go ahead?" There's a noticeable silence. Finally Ansanelli says quietly, "Let's try it one more time."

That unwavering determination has brought Ansanelli swift and dramatic success at New York City Ballet, a company where budding talents often spend years in the corps de ballet and nearly as long in the soloist ranks. At 16, she joined NYCB's corps; within two years she became a soloist. Sidelined for several seasons by a severe foot injury, she returned in 200l to be singled out by choreographers like Christopher Wheeldon for major roles in new work.

Named principal last year (DANCE MAGAZINE selected her as one of its "25 to Watch," January 2003, p. 46), Ansanelli caused a stir among critics last spring when she stepped into Coppelia at the last moment to replace an injured dancer. She brought a leggy, coltish charm to Swanilda, her performance brimming over with mischief and a joyful vitality--no ballerina ever showed up her doll-rival more thoroughly.

The company's winter run, crammed with debuts and glowing reviews, has made this feel like Ansanelli's season. Critic Robert Gottlieb praised her "glamour and tensile strength" in the "Rubies" section of Jewels, and The New York Times' Anna Kisselgoff singled out her elegant Columbine in the revival of Harlequinade. While Ansanelli has a broad repertoire, her infectious exuberance and natural athleticism give her a distinctive edge in leotard ballets and soubrette parts. "She's expansive, even abandoned, in her movement quality," says Wheeldon, who has created very divergent roles for her, from the romantic Carousel: A Dance to the spikey Polyphonia. "She'll step beyond the boundaries even to the point of falling, and that's thrilling for audiences."

Offstage, Ansanelli's energy turns into a steady focus. She seems unusually poised for a 23 year old, meticulously groomed and made up. Early on, that focus translated as an unshakable confidence despite the odds. Ansanelli didn't start ballet classes until age 11, when her mother decided it might channel some of her soccer-loving daughter's boundless energy in a more feminine direction. The family lived in Long Island's affluent Laurel Hollow. Alexandra also took tennis and horseback-riding lessons, and a local soccer coach told them she had college level potential. "I think my mother wanted to instill some grace and refinement in me," recalls Ansanelli. "I was so active."

At a performing arts summer camp, Ansanelli ended up in a recital with Miami City Ballet director Edward Villella's daughter. Villella, watching from the audience, told her parents he thought she belonged at the School of American Ballet. When Ansanelli went to audition for the school, along with several hundred other students, she felt convinced that she had been accepted. Her parents urged her not to be disappointed. The next day, they got the call.

Looking back, Ansanelli explains her sense of conviction without embarrassment. "When I have a challenge, I give it a hundred percent," she says. "I have an imagination. I always think about the possibility of what I desire, and that it's reachable."

For the first year, Ansanelli and her mother commuted to her SAB classes; then the family moved into New York. Ansanelli currently lives with her parents in a n apartment near Lincoln Center. At SAB, she caught the eye of Nichol Hlinka, then a principal with the company, who had come to the school to stage a choreography workshop. "I saw her in class one day," Hlinka recalls. "She had a strength that made her stand out. She seemed to embody a modern classicism." Hlinka cast Ansanelli and found her impressive. "She was daring and brave from the outset," Hlinka says. "Where the other students held back, she plunged in." Peter Martins attended the workshop and liked Ansanelli's performance so much he plucked her from the school to be an NYCB apprentice before she finished her training.

While Ansanelli seems like NYCB's golden girl of the moment, the company's winter season brought one disappointing review. Times critic Kisselgoff criticized her classical form in her debut as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, and Ansanelli herself admits that her performance was flawed. "I was exhausted the day of the show," she says. She felt her second performance was stronger. "I knew I could have done better. Some roles I feel I only know eighty-percent. I'll see myself doing them and say, 'I have the wrong idea there.' But I know I'll master it in the future, because I'll make sure I do."

That work ethic lies at the heart of Ansanelli's approach to dancing "Alexandra sets the bar very high for what she expects of herself," says frequent partner Benjamin Millipied. "In rehearsal, it can be tedious. She stops, she goes back, but it's because she cares what she does. Working with he, makes me want to be a better dancer." Millipied also admires Ansanelli's way of performing. "She responds to the moment," he explains. "Nothing is calculated. She looks right at you and does something totally unexpected, like a back-bend twice as big as we've been rehearsing. It's because she's enjoying it so much."

Sometimes Ansanelli's perfectionism can have drawbacks. "There are times I get frustrated," says Wheeldon. "One day Alexandra will give me something interesting, and the next day she'll come up with another idea and you want to set something and move on, but I'd rather work with a dancer who's creative like that than one who wants everything explained to them exactly." He praises her work in Carousel: A Dance, as particularly rewarding. "She captured the dark part of Julie, her resistance and fear of a male presence, through her movement. I was thrilled with that."

Ansanelli has begun to calibrate herself a little. "I'm so passionate that sometimes it's detrimental," she says. "I have an eagerness to do, to understand, to know. I think part of it is because I started late. I didn't understand when I was younger final calmness is needed. It's a certain maturity, and I think it comes with time."

Meanwhile, Ansanelli will continue captivating audiences with the bravura technique and unabashed energy that worried the one-time soccer player's mother so much that she decided it was time for ballet school.

Hanna Rubin is DM's managing editor.