A teenager has become only the second British dancer to join the world’s most prestigious ballet school in Russia in its 270-year history.

Hermione Bond will attend the Vaganova school in St Petersburg where Rudolf Nureyev and Vaslav Nijinsky also trained.

The 17-year-old flew to the school for an audition, but the director offered her a place on the spot after a dazzling rehearsal. She trained at London’s Royal Ballet School and will enrol next month at Vaganova, where she will dance six hours a day, seven days a week.

Hermione, from Exeter, Devon, said: “It’s really amazing. It’s such a great honour to be there. I have worked really hard. Music did come naturally to me, but I had to really push myself on my feet, stretching them to achieve the right positioning and making them stronger.”

Hermione had her first dancing lesson at the age of two and began studying the discipline seriously at 12. She said: “I got a real buzz out of it. I just wanted to work harder and harder so I could do it again and again.” Her mother Michelle added: “She has worked very hard for this – it’s wonderful.”

The teenager will be accompanied by another British dancer, Isabella McGuire Mayes, 16, from London, who was accepted by the school earlier this month.

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