Nutcracker: Backstage with English National Ballet

The Australian Ballet has evolved to become our nation's most treasured performing arts company and an icon of dance. 'And We Danced' looks back to reveal what has shaped this world-class institution and made it uniquely ours.

Channel 4 is joining forces with Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB), and Youth at Risk for the first time to set Birmingham and Black Country youth a challenge of a lifetime. Do they have what it takes to perform the MacMillan production of Romeo and Juliet live on stage, to a packed audience, with a cast of professional dancers?

This is the story of two very different women. One is a promising ballerina, rich and arrogant. The other is a well-mannered flight attendant, always ready with a smile. The two share nothing in common...except for a name. Rafah. Somehow, fate joins them together in a fall from heaven—a flight attendant with a fractured wing and a dancer with a broken leg.

Claire, a talented but emotionally troubled dancer, joins a company in New York City, and soon finds herself immersed in the tough and often cutthroat world of professional ballet. The dark and gritty series will unflinchingly explore the dysfunction and glamour of the ballet world.

At Sydney's National Dance Academy, a few talented youngsters are recruited for the excruciatingly tough course. It follows Tara Webster, a sheepfarmgirl who's ambition is to be the next best ballerina. Jewish long line of doctors' heir Samuel 'Sammy' and minor juvenile offender Christian are the outsiders but gradually fit in, making new kinds of friends. Star ballerina's daughter Kat also introduces them in the circle of last-year brother Ethan, who already aspires a career as choreographer. Also Abigail, a smart young girl who'll walk over dead bodies to reach the stars tries to sabotage everything and everyone.

Princess Tutu follows Duck, a duck who was transformed into a young girl and takes ballet at a private school. She becomes enamoured of her mysterious schoolmate Mytho, and transforms into Princess Tutu to restore his shattered heart. Mytho's girlfriend Rue transforms into Princess Kraehe to frustrate Tutu's efforts, and Mytho's protective friend Fakir discourages Mytho's burgeoning emotions. When it becomes apparent that Duck, Rue, Mytho, and Fakir are meant to play out the characters in a story by a long-dead writer named Drosselmeyer, they resist their assigned fates and fight to keep the story from becoming a tragedy.

Emma Conti is an internationally renowned étoile. She was only a girl when she left Vicenza for New York, to forget the death of Alice, the child she had from her great love of her youth. After sixteen years an anonymous letter insinuates in her the doubt: her daughter would be alive in Vicenza and would be a dancer, just like her. It's time for Emma to go home and seek out the truth among the pupils of her old dance school. Emma will find the girl she once was, and she will open up to the possibility of a new love.

Kobayashi Hassei, 29, is a narcissistic ballet dancer who belongs to the Komorigawa Ballet Company. In order to make men's ballet more popular and to promote himself, he is actively engaged in activities such as video distribution. He is in a close trio with veteran dancer Moriyama Masanobu and his classmate Sasaki Mashiro, who are from different generations but somehow get along together. Hassei and his friends spend their days casually rehearsing with the ballet company during the day and teaching at a ballet class at night, but one day on the way home, a problem occurs. After that, Hassei makes a shocking confession: "I'm quitting ballet at the end of this year." Why did Hassei decide to "quit"? The curtain rises on Hassei's "last year facing ballet," who loves ballet more than anyone else.

In 1950s Spain, a couple summon their son home from Mexico to introduce him to his fiancée, but are shocked when he returns with a ballerino.

In an ambitious gambit to save their storied institutions, two world-renowned ballet companies in New York City and Paris swap their most talented stars.