Michaela's dance of triumph...

"I didn't really want to answer it," she said. "It had been going all morning and, of course, when you're abroad, you pay for the call.

"My friend had switched hers off. However, I'm glad I did keep mine on in the end."

The voice bouncing off the satellite belonged to Scott Firmin, head of entertainment at Disneyworld, Florida and, by definition, one of the most powerful figures in the worldwide entertainment industry. The great man had a personal message for Michaela.

It was the stuff of showbiz legend. "We'd like you to come over and entertain us. We want you and your kids to perform for us in Disneyworld, for the Millennium," he said.

The momentousness of the deal can be measured by the fact that Scott had delivered it in person, not via one of 20,000 Mickey-Mouse-eared secretaries and aides. The facts speak for themselves.

The dance troupe from South Essex Theatre School, in Leigh, had been selected following viewing of more than 1,500 videos. The tapes had been sent in to Disney by hungry performers from all over the world. Just two entries were selected and the SETH youngsters were one of them.

For Michaela, and for the school that she runs, the Disney offer has been the culmination of a stupendous 12 months. Earlier this year, the school also scooped the prizes at Britain's top modern dance awards, the Janet Crumm competition.

SETH doesn't make any claims to be the most successful dance school in Britain, it just has the track record to more or less prove it.

"I suppose we all strive to be the best and...er...I suppose that in the end you could say that was what we were aiming for," says Michaela, albeit slightly embarrassed and clearly anxious not to sound arrogant.

The 1999 annus mirabilis is something more than just a success story. For Michaela herself, the boost represents a personal triumph, but it also marks the final climb out of a very deep pit.

Michaela is a poised and radiant young woman. With her recent successes and her own acting and dancing talent, you'd think she had almost more luck than was fair.

In fact, while there may be a dancing star hanging over her there is also another, far darker one. Few would guess, looking at her, that she has had to fight her way out of a personal catastrophe, brought about by cruel and freakish mischance.

In September 1992 Michaela was stepping off an aircraft somewhere in England ("The lawyers tell me I can't give the details," she says).

The stairway had not been properly anchored. It moved, throwing Michaela to the ground. Her face was smashed and "they thought my neck was broken." She would probably, the doctors said, be paralysed for life.

The accident happened two weeks before Michaela was due to take up a place at the Guildhall School.

The famous music and drama academy, which is used to student applicants beating at its door, had actually sought her out. "Someone had seen me acting (in amateur drama) and as a result I got offered a place. I hadn't even applied."

She had been contemplating a golden carpet, and now she was looking at life in a wheelchair. She took a good look, and didn't like it: "I'm a strong person, and I thought: I'm getting out of this. I found myself a trainer at a gym and we worked and worked."

A tough time? "Yes," says Michaela, succinctly. "But I got there, and now I'm here."

"Here" is the mirrored dance hall in Leigh where the SETH operates. Unable to dance professionally herself, Michaela instead teaches others to triumph in dancing.

She says: "The lawyers kept asking: 'What do you want to do with your life, now that you can't dance? There must be something else.' But ever since I was two all I'd ever wanted was to dance and be on stage."

Seven years and nine operations after the accident, Michaela has regained most of her dance movements. It's too painful to dance for long and she no longer dances for pleasure. She can, however, dance enough to show others how to do wondrously well.

Chary or not when it comes to talking about herself, Michaela will chat endlessly about the children she teaches, some 300 in all. She sums up her method with a single word - love. The outward sign of this is the hugging and kissing and constant reassurance that Michaela devotes on her charges.

"Some dance teachers might consider our methods too familiar," she says. But she points out what the people from Disney say: "There is a special sense of joy about the way your children dance."

Michaela lives with her parents in Benfleet - her mother Wendy runs the Masters performing arts school in Rayleigh.

In the mad rush of her schedule, little necessities, like shopping, are tucked into the wee small hours. Boyfriends don't seem to have found a window in that schedule.

"I am," she says, "very happy." She even senses a purpose of sorts in her accident. "Although it can be hard to accept at the time, I am convinced that these things are meant to happen. If it hadn't been for that fall, I wouldn't be here at the school, now."

Michaela's own dance career is over, yet there is little now to stop her pursuing her original career path as an actress - except her school.

"I think: I'll just see one more lot through, and then I'll begin," she rues. "But then there's another lot of little faces looking up at me and I can't let them go, either."

Few people are better qualified to give advice on good times and bad than Michaela Headford. Her experiences have given her the same maxim for tackling triumph or disaster alike: "Don't listen to everyone around you. Go with what your own head and heart are saying."

Dancing to a different tune - Michaela Headford is devoting her energies and considerable talents to teaching youngsters, after a horrendous accident left her unable to pursue her dream of being a professional dancer

Picture: NICK ANSELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.