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Grace Whitney
Grace Whitney - profile
Information
Full Name Grace Whitney
Gender Female
Eye Color Blue
Hair Color Dirty Blonde
Network
Family Angel Whitney (Half-sister)
Unnamed father
Unnamed mother
Unnamed step-mother (I-V)
Relationships Zach Andrews (former crush, kissed)
Ethan Karamakov (kiss)
School(s) Royal Ballet School (prior to her appearance)
National Academy of Dance
Affiliation(s) Miss Raine (god-mother)
Production
First Episode In The Middle, Somewhat Elevated
Last Episode Not for Nothing
Portrayed By Isabel Durant

… You don't know me. Dancing…I find it easy and I get bored. It's the only thing I'm good at. And I do care about it.

—Grace Whitney, The Naturals

Grace Whitney is an Australian girl who has been studying at the Royal Ballet School in London for the last few years. As she looks around at the Academy one thing is patently clear if she’s going to stay in the colonies she’s going to need to shake things up. The moment Grace enters the studio everyone can see that the barre for excellence has been raised. Born with near perfect proportions for classical ballet she’s been training at the right schools from a very young age. Despite her talent though, she’s not a Betty Bunhead. Sure she’ll charm the teachers particularly her godmother Miss Raine who was an old friend of her mother’s but that’s just to make her life easier. Grace makes up stories so much it can be hard to tell what is true and what isn’t.

Grace’s mother died when she was eight. Grace’s father married another woman one month after his wife’s death. His wife tally now comes to four and Grace suspects he has an eye out for wife number five. Grace started dancing because her father found it amusing and he has always been proud to have a ballerina for a daughter. She dances not because of any great driving passion but because she’s very, very good at it. Grace enjoys both being good at things and being better than people who want it desperately. She’s clever with words but her real interest is in observing human behaviour what makes people tick how to read between the lines, how to figure out what secrets they’re keeping and their deepest darkest fears. Bored easily Grace knows the only way to keep herself truly stimulated is by playing mind games with people.

Relationships[]

Miss Raine[]

Miss Raine is Grace's godmother. At first, it seems as if they were getting along very well as Miss Raine obviously appears pleased to have her at the Academy. However, Grace uses this connection to the headmaster to stay clear of punishment when breaking rules.

In Episode 19, it is shown that Grace has trouble accepting her dad's second marriage as she claims him being the only person that ever cared about her. Miss Raine then comes to Grace's room to show her a picture of herself and her mother in the late Eighties: they were very good friends. When Grace's mother became depressive, Miss Raine blamed her father because she thought she'd been off dancing in the company. This revelation must have given Grace more confidence in herself and makes her go see Zach, the dance teacher, to ask him to push her more so that she can keep enjoying dancing.

In early Season 3, Grace uses her talents at match-making with Miss Raine in order to be able to go to a Lady Gaga concert, as she accuses her godmother of leaving her no private time.

Abigail Armstrong[]

As the second season starts off, Abigail and Grace don't seem to have a lot in common: Abigail is serious about dancing, Grace finds it boring. In fact, Abigail must envy her for her natural talent. A group of first years as shown complete dedication to Abigail, so she decides to use them to retrieve essential information about Grace's time at the Royal Ballet School. However, they fall in Grace's trap. Later in the season, Abigail and Grace become friends, as Abigail comes to see her as an equally skilled dancer. But Abigail has grown fonder of Tara than she expected, so she gets mad at Grace for trying to hurt Tara. Grace takes revenge by breaking several pairs of pointe shoes and blaming indirectly Abigail for it, her being the only one whose pointe shoes are still intact. Their friendship seems to break up and Grace turns to Tara, whereas Abigail tries at first to warn Tara about Grace's mischievous personality, but Tara ignores her, thinking Abigail is up to her old tricks. So Abigail is forced to watch silently as Grace causes havoc among the group.

Tara Webster[]

Grace and Tara start off on the wrong foot. Both Abigail and Tara see Grace at first as a potential threat to their status as first year stars, especially Tara. This gets worse with Grace dancing Ethan's choreography instead of Tara in Season 2, Episode 1, just because Tara missed one rehearsal.

Grace and Abigail end up befriending one another. During the period of Grace's friendship with Abigail, Grace is mean to Tara. In Season 2, Episode 9, Grace invites the girls out for a night out to forget about the boys after the exams. Kat interrupts their night out and invites Tara to a club and Grace is annoyed because she already had the night planned already. Grace hijacks all of the girls' phones to 'avoid the boys' and reveals that Kat has been texting Christian which hurts Tara. Abigail points out that Grace did a "great job of getting rid of Kat" and she was "out for Kat as soon as she hijacked the night."

In Season 2, Episode 10, Grace tries to talk to Abigail again and Abigail gives Grace the cold shoulder as Abigail is upset that Grace has tried to make things worse between Kat, Tara, and Christian. Now that Abigail no longer likes or trusts Grace, Grace talk about Abigail during dance class, telling Tara that Abigail is "out to get her" because of the Prix de Fonteyn. Tara then tries to ensure that Grace and Abigail are getting along by telling Abigail that they should all hang out again, but Abigail states Tara "still sleeps with teddybears" and Grace "plays with voodoo dolls."

Later that evening, Grace breaks the shanks of her own pointe shoes and Tara's pointe shoes. She manipulates the situation, pointing out that Abigail's pointe shoes are fine. Tara believes this and she gets angry with Abigail because of Abigail's history of being overly competitive. Later in S2E10, Grace talks to Abigail saying "that's me, 1, and you, nil" saying that they should "make up" and she "misses" Abigail, but Abigail says Grace is "whack" and that she is "rising above." Grace says "get ready for round 2" and she ends up falsely reporting Abigail for the broken pointe shoes to Miss Raine.

Abigail attempts to apologize, but Tara decides to move out of her room with Abigail--believing that Abigail is the one who is being manipulative and breaking pointe shoes. Tara moves in with Grace and they become friends. Their friendship grows stronger as Tara discovers Kat's love for Christian. Grace, of course, has been engineering this whole drama by texting Christian from Kat's phone and inviting the boys to join them at a slam, in order to win Tara over. 

Grace convinces Tara to film Saskia and Tara's 'private lessons' which shows that Saskia has been singling out and bullying Tara. Grace watches the incident back on video and convinces Tara to put it online. Tara states she wants to speak with Kat and Grace says she needs to wean off of Kat because she cannot help her from Paris. They post the video which leads to the video going viral and Miss Rain pulls Tara aside and reprimands her. Tara

Later, Grace also makes Tara drink "funky orange juice" (Episode 17), which in reality is orange juice with alcohol, and consequently makes Tara drunk. Grace is also the one that convinces Tara to break school rules and see an outside doctor for her broken back. This leads to Tara getting expelled.

When Tara is accepted back into the academy, she and Grace are better friends than before because Grace has supported her, and Tara goes back to rooming with Grace. Tara is still very close to her in Episode 18, but at the circus, the trapeze exercise reunites Tara and Kat because they truly trust each other. This upsets Grace as she seems to think that Tara has chosen Kat over her and therefore drives Tara and Grace apart.

Then Grace has an incident with her male dance teacher, Zach, and she tells Tara to tell Miss Raine a lie. Tara isn't sure, so she tells Miss Raine the truth. She is sent back to England but returns to Sydney representing the UK for the Prix de Fonteyn. She then takes Tara's special solo, "The Red Shoes," and tells her that she is performing it at the Internationals and she let Tara win the Nationals. Grace and Tara turn into bitter rivals and compete the same solo at the Prix de Fonteyn. Even though Taras version of the red shoes is heartfelt and genuine, Grace still ends up beating her in the Prix de Fonteyn.

In S3E1, Grace yearns for joining the group again and even Tara tries her best to make her fit in again. At the surprise birthday party for Abigail, however, things get out of hand. Earlier in the same episode, Tara and Ben are doing dance assessments in front of the director the National Ballet, his assistant, Miss Raine, and Zach as there are open spots in the corps de ballet. Tara and Ben do their assessment, but she falls. The director, Sir Jeffrey, asks Grace and Ben to dance together and she excels, impressing them. However, Grace deliberately falls in the same spot, but Tara is hesitant to trust her.

When both of them join the corps de ballet, Grace makes fun of Tara at numerous occasions.

Sammy Lieberman[]

Sammy is Grace's pas de deux partner after her asking Miss Raine to make changes in the pas de deux class.

She shows no kindness towards Sammy whatsoever. When he dies, she knows and comments to Tara about how she lost the one thing that mattered most. She is worse then Abigail was in season 1.

Ben Tickle[]

In Episode 16, Tara had already convinced Ben to do his solo on his cancer survival, but Grace eventually talks him out of it.

In early Season 3, Grace is asked by the company director to do the pas de deux with Ben, which Tara had done previously during the exam. They both seem happy dance together, but then Grace pretends to slip at the same point where Tara accidentally slipped, causing Ben to never show the jury the full performance, much to his annoyance.

Later, Grace also teases him about being "dangled" by Tara, suggesting strongly that he should jump to the opportunity Saskia is giving him by proposing private tutoring even though Tara tries to talk him out of it.

Zach Andrews[]

The teacher feels that Grace is bored during his classes, so he doesn't pay much attention to her-- he justifies himself in Episode 19, saying that he only gives attention to people who deserve it, meaning that Grace's rebellious behavior prevents him from teaching her correctly. He also askes her to leave his class. When Grace finally confesses that she loves dancing but gets bored in class because it is so easy for her due to her natural abilities, Zach takes her back to the dance studio and shows her a more diffucult choreography. She learns quickly and at the end, they even dance it together. There is some sort of connection between them. Later, we see her in her room and she seems happy. But Grace gets confused and thinks that Zach likes her and she kisses him. Zach tells Miss Raine after Tara comes forward, and the last time we see her in that episode is her getting into a taxi and leaving the academy.

Kat Karamakov[]

Kat being Tara's best friend she is Grace's greatest rival when it comes to get Tara's attention. Therefore, Grace works at driving them apart by arranging Kat's and Christian's confessions. She then encourages Tara's hatred for Kat until Episode 18. Even though both of them are some sort of rebells and Tara believes they must have no problems to become friends, they truly are different: Kat has a natural personality and inclination for Tara, but Grace is mostly engineering intrigues.

Marilyn[]

Marilyn is

Grace and Marilyn

Grace's pet axolotl. Grace is seen feeding Marilyn on the show multiple times. Grace can sometimes seem heartless and sinister, but whenever she is seen with Marilyn, it is sensed that Grace genuinly cares about Marilyn. It also appears that whenever Grace feed Marilyn, she releases all of the tension and stress that has been tying her down, and she actually seems to be relaxed and calm.

Quotes[]

  • "Meet Grace. She's damaged by her dad never having any time for her." (Abigail about Grace to her mother)
  • "If I was battling that far out of my league, I'd be singing it from the rooftops, too."
  • "Help! Help! My friend is fainting!"
  • "What are you doing to me?!"
  • "Very inspiring words, Lucy." (to Ms. Raine)
  • "I got expelled for giving a girl a nervous breakdown." (to Abigail)
  • "Are we not friends anymore? Come on, Abs, let's hug and make up. I miss you."
  • "Your positive feedback is inspirational." (to Zack)
  • "These games you play - I don't find them interesting." (Zack about Grace)
  • "My hair! My beautiful hair!"
  • "How could you take his side? I trusted you!" (to Tara about Zack)
  • "Partly boredom, partly an experiment to see if you'd stand up for me. Grand fail. Oh - and at the nationals: I let you win." (to Tara)
  • "It's really good to know that you're still looking out for me, T." (to Tara)
  • "I've always been there for you: through Saskia, through Kat, and you betrayed me. I'm going to win the Prix doing your solo and you're going to watch." (to Tara)
  • "The koala's my boyfriend, not yours."
  • "There is the dangler herself." (about Tara)
  • "Is anoushka in? " (to nervous sales person)

Gallery[]

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