NTI_BETH_DANCE

Down's Syndrome sufferer Beth Gardiner (20) from Nottingham. A girl with Down's Syndrome is aiming for the West End after she became the first person in the UK with the condition to make it onto a national training scheme for talented young dancers. See NTI story NTIDANCER. Award-winning Beth Gardiner, 20, has been dancing since she was five and used it as a way of getting her "tears out" and expressing herself as a child. The contemporary-style dancer has been enrolled on the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) scheme since September 2013 and has performed on stages all over Nottingham. The programme aims to give young dancers the skills they need to make it as professionals and has already helped some bright young stars to achieve their West End break. Ambitious Beth, a dance teaching assistant with Oakfield Dance in Nottingham, won a prize for dance at the Young Creative Awards ceremony at Nottingham Playhouse earlier this month. But now she has the West End firmly in her sights and hopes her story will inspire other young people with disabilities to follow in her footsteps. Yesterday (Tue), Beth - who trains for 10 hours a day - said she has had to endure being "stared at" by people in the street and being ignored by others in group conversations.