Before a ballet is ready to be performed on stage, hundreds of hours of work takes place behind the scenes.
Ballet dancers are a very elite group of athletes.
They train for many years before becoming professional dancers and once they join a company their training does not end. Dancers bodies need to be extremely strong and flexible to execute the demanding technique of ballet so they must practice and rehearse every day to keep their bodies in top physical condition. For every minute of dancing you see on the stage, there has been an hour of rehearsal. The setting of the stage in a ballet helps to evoke the time, place or atmosphere of the production. All of the sets, scenery and props used by the National Ballet are made at the company s production workshop, a large building the size of an airplane hanger.