OF ALL the performing arts ballet has to be one of the most physically demanding.

Argentinean-born Graciela Kaplan, now 51, spent 16 years as a professional ballerina. For all of that time she worked her body relentlessly.

“We had ballet class every morning, rehearsals in the afternoon and a performance in the evenings. We’d do seven performances a week, five evenings and two matinees,” she says.

“If I sometimes found that I only had a class in the morning, with the rest of the day off, then I would go to the gym.

“Ballet dancers are afraid of getting flabby and want to be in peak condition all the time,” she explained. “My thing was to be in top physical form so that my strength was there and my flexibility was there.”

Even since her retirement Graciela works hard to maintain her fitness, although she bemoans the fact that her sylph-like figure is now more of a size 10 than the size 8 it used to be. For several years she taught ballet as well as the Pilates that is her main interest today.

Ballet’s legacy is a grace and suppleness that few women of Graciela’s age can muster. But she has also paid for her years of high-octane performance with damaged joints and a bad back.

Ballet dancers have relatively short careers and are fortunate indeed if they don’t have any injuries. “I feel to have got away quite lightly,” she says. “One of the dancers I worked with is in his early forties but has had both his hips replaced.”

Graciela’s biggest setback during her years as a dancer was when she tore the cruciate ligament in her knee – also a typical footballer’s injury. The subsequent operation meant that she had to take months off work, during which time she discovered Pilates, a system of exercise favoured by dancers and which focuses on improving core strength and stability. It inspired her to train in Pilates and build a studio onto her home, where she teaches..

Although Graciela looks to be in great shape, it is four years since she wore a pair of point shoes and says that her part in the Alumni Gala, A Christmas Carol, on December 5 at The Grand in Leeds will be a non-dancing, acting role only.

“We did Christmas Carol every year and we’d all have one dancing part and one character part. I’d always play Old Hag One (there are three), so I asked if I could do that in the gala performance,” said Graciela, who is hoping to be allowed to shed her ‘hag rags’ and look a little more glamorous in the finale.

Her husband, musician Michael McKenna, and friends old and new will be in the audience to offer their support. It will, she says, be an emotional performance and reunion with many old colleagues.

Graciela says she has never regretted devoting herself to dance, although it’s a tough life. She was born in Rosario, Argentina and was taken to ballet lessons from the age of four. “I was always skipping about to music,” she said.

Although many little girls dream about becoming ballerinas, Graciela had the discipline, talent and determination to succeed.

“I had a motivational teacher and lots of encouragement but you have to be single minded. At the age of 15 and 16 a lot of boys and girls begin to develop other interests and if those interests have got more pull then that is when they stop dancing,” she explained.

Trained in traditional Russian ballet, Graciela knew that she’d have to leave Rosario to further her career. After visiting Israel on a holiday to Europe with her parents she made contact with the Israel Classical Ballet and was invited to take a class with their dancers.

At the age of just 21 she was offered a contract to dance in Israel and left Argentina. Although she couldn’t have known it at the time, she was never to return to live in South America although she continues to make regular trips there to see her parents, brother, sister and old friends.

From Israel she moved to England and in 1984 joined the Northern Ballet Theatre as a senior soloist.

In her years with the NBT Graciela danced every major classical role and became the company’s principal ballerina. She once danced with the famed Rudolph Nureyev.

As the NBT is a touring company, she spent years living out of a suitcase but it wasn’t until she got married that Graciela chose to retire – at 37, the same age as Darcy Bussell.

“My heart ached,” she says, “for my husband and home. I could have gone on for a bit longer, but I decided it was time to stop.

“I am so excited at the prospect of being on stage again. Although ballet is hard, physically and mentally, all the negatives count for nothing when you’re performing.”