A YOUNG dancer will be pirouetting down to Preston next year to perform in an English Youth Ballet show.

Erin O’Connor, who attends Chantelle’s Danc successfully auditioned for the EYB production of Giselle, which will be staged at Preston’s Charter Theatre at the beginning of March.

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The 14-year-old has also grabbed a place on the Junior Associate Programme at The Hammond School in Chester, where she will spend three days a term with professional choreographers and teachers perfecting her dancing.

Erin’s mum Jackie Haywood said her daughter’s string of achievements recently had been coming for a long time.

She said: “She has always loved dancing and has always been passionate about it, so I was never that surprised about her getting into EYB because she is so committed and wants to make a career out of it.

“I am very proud of what she has achieved, she has worked very hard at it. There were a lot of people auditioning and she was very pleased to be chosen.”

Erin, from Samlesbury who attends Chantelle’s Dance Aca-demy in Wilpshire, has been a dancer since she was three years old and has been a student at Chantelle’s Dance Academy since it opened in 2008.

She recently took part in the academy’s show Lets Dance 2015 at the Thwaites Empire Theatre in Blackburn, which involved around 45 dancers from the ages of two to 20.

Chantelle Leyland-Dewhurst, head of the dance academy, said that Erin fully deserves her place at both The Hammond and in the EYB.

She said: “She’s always been a hard worker, especially over the past couple of years, where she’s put so much effort in. She’s really come into her own all of a sudden.

“She was first spotted for her talent at Darwen Dance Live, where one of the judges picked her out for her performance as part of a group and things have just grown from there.

“She’s done really well and she’s certainly going to go a long way.I can see her at dance college in a couple of years time and then turning it to some sort of career.”

Erin also won a festival recently in ballet and modern in Wakefield and, just two weeks after that, she triumphed in the same disciplines at the Preston Stage Festival.

The performance of Giselle will take place on March 4 and 5 at Preston Guild Hall.