IN LIFE as in dance, grace glides on blistered feet.

Students of the Limerick School of Classical Ballet will be all too familiar with this metaphor for seeking perfection in both their practice and physique, as voiced here by the poet Alice Abrams.

The school, which celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, has taught hundreds, if not thousands of ballet dancers since its establishment, according to the school's teacher, Alice Marshall Ryan.

For the past 24 years, having moved to Limerick at the age of 19, she has watched children as young as four years old, from Kilmallock to Killaloe and beyond, pulling on their tutus and lacing up their pointe shoes at the school in the hope of becoming the Markovas and Baryshnikovs of the Mid-West.

A native of Gloucestershire in England and now residing in Corbally, she admits that the art attracts a middle to upper class clientele, and can't recall any children from Limerick's disadvantaged estates ever wishing to join. Up to 60 new students are accommodated each year and 90 people are currently on the waiting list to learn cecchetti, the purest form of classical ballet.

And the love of ballet is being passed on from generation to generation, with former pupils now bringing in their daughters to be trained by Mrs Marshall Ryan. So what's the attraction?

"Oh, my goodness! How long have you got?" exclaimed the 42 year-old mother of five. "I like everything about it - the theatre, the music, the discipline, the methodical way you have to intellectually think about what your body is doing. I can't explain it - it just gets into your blood. It's the whole product at the end."

But for little five year-old girls the prospect of dressing up like a princess and prancing around the room is more appealing, and that, she said, is why many very young children want to join - rather than at the behest of pushy parents. "The ballet world probably has to thank Angelina Ballerina (the American children's series] for the demand in courses," she laughed.

Mrs Marshall Ryan said she was gripped by the dance from the age of four, after watching her sister practice ballet and immediately wanted to do the same.

"I remember seeing Singing in the Rain as a child and could have watched it over and over. I used to watch all the old films and then run up to my room to dance."

The Limerick School of Classical Ballet, based upstairs in the Tutorial College at The Crescent, meets every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. One term is priced at €110. For more details contact 061 341537.

For the full article see this week's Limerick Leader