In between competitions in Los Angeles, Soleil, 14, auditioned for the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA), the most coveted performing arts conservatorium based in Hollywood and New York specialising in creating triple threats, says dance teacher and mum Karine Szita.

Soleil was offered a place in AMDA's 2020 intake and was also offered a $10,000 scholarship.

"Given that they only enroll 45 new students every year in their full-time course, this was quite an achievement," Karine said of her daughter's acceptance news.

Soleil, a dancer at Vogue Performing Arts Academy in Kempsey, said she was "actually very surprised" to receive the news, given the thousands of other dances she was up against in auditions.

"But I was very excited and grateful. They train the best of the best and one of their graduates is actually portraying Elsa on Broadway at the moment, so to know that they wanted to have me in their course for musical theatre was very exciting," Soleil said.

"Being offered the scholarship was also amazing, but even with this help my family is not in a financial position to cover the rest of the fees. So while I am quite sad about that, it's still so great that they liked me that much that they offered me the scholarship."

"Dancing and performing is quite honestly my life. I love it so much, I can not think of doing anything else for a career and I am so lucky to have parents who support my choices and always try to give me as many opportunities that they can," Soleil said.

During her time in the USA, Soleil also competed in two national dance competitions and came home with three national dance titles to her name.

After qualifying last year Soleil was invited to compete in the national finals at the Starpower International Dance Championships and the Showstopper National Dance Championships in Los Angles; as well as the Kids Artistic Review National Finals in New York. However, due to time restraints, was only able to compete in the Los Angeles' competitions.

This wasn't the first time Soleil had been invited to compete in the USA. For the past four years now she has been qualifying and receiving scholarships to participate in American national dance competitions.

"But my patents told me I was too young and we could never afford it. So I was over the moon when my they said that this year we could go," Soleil said.

At the Starpower International Dance Championships Soleil was selected to perform as part of the elite dance force youth company.

"This meant rehearsing six hours each day as she and her team mates only had four days to learn the choreography, which they performed at Battle of the Stars," said mum Karine.

At Starpower she also performed in two solos - a song and dance, for which she won first place to become national champion; and a lyrical, which she placed second to take runner-up national champion.

Soleil also received a special "the whole package" award in recognition of her skills in acting, dancing and singing, which included a $1000 scholarship from a talent agency. She was also gifted a free photo shoot for her professionalism and skills in picking up choreography fast.

Soleil was graded as the fifth highest scoring routine for the entire competition for her age group, but amazingly she was awarded runner up out of more than 1000 acts and all ages for the entire competition for the 'best entertainer' title.

At the second dance competition, the Showstopper National Dance Championships, Soleil won first place, and was named national champion for her song and dance, and tied for first place, in her lyrical dance for the advanced teen category. She was also graded as the fourth highest scoring routine for the whole competition for her age group.

However the territory of high performance dancing doesn't come without it's challenges, which Soleil said only drive her to work harder and focus on what's important.

"Training is hard, and sometimes I doubt myself because I always get criticised for my 'bad feet'," Soleil said.

"But this is something that I can't change, I was born with these feet, so it is sad when judges take points away because they don't like my feet or tell me I should not be on pointes (ballet tip toe position) because my feet don't look good.

"But I guess it's made me mature and taught me to take criticism.

"In a way it's also making me work harder to achieve harder tricks and skills so the judges don't have time to look at my feet," Soleil said.

Soleil draws much of her dancing inspiration from American-style choreography, which she says includes more acrobatic techniques that she finds Australian dance competition judges don't always appreciate.

But handling rejection is all part of the journey, the young dancer explained.

"What I say to myself is that all I have to worry about is that I want to dance my best and show my teachers that I am working hard and I am improving at every performance regardless of placings.

"[Rejection] makes you try harder to become a better dancer... but my focus is always on national and international competitions because there are always more than two judges and I know that the judges will give us current feedback based on what the current trend is and on how difficult our routines are. That is what I think is fair and that's what my training is about," Soleil said.

Soleil trains at Vogue Performing Arts Academy in Kempsey where she dances for around 15 hours per week, which mum Karine says "is not a lot compared to what her peers do in the capital cities, but this does not stop her from training hard and achieving her goals."

Soleil is now working hard on new routines for the Australian National Dance Championships on the Gold Coast in January.

"She is hoping to go back to the USA, if not next year, the year after to further her training to fulfill her dreams of a career in anything performance related, whether it be musical theatre and/or acrobatics, singing, professional dancing," Karine said. "She certainly has the drive, talent and tenacity to give it her best shot."

"It has always been a dream to compete there [USA], to see where I stood against the best of the best and get important feedback from industry professionals," Soleil said.

"Dancing there is very acrobatics and tricks based, and I think the judges liked to see a very different kind of dancing style on stage and I think that's why I did well there.

"This experience is something I will never forget. I have made new friends in LA and it has given me so much more motivation to train harder at the studio. I will be forever grateful to my parents and all my teachers for helping me get to where I am today," Soleil said.

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