Grace Whitney

Grace Whitney
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 danger to their status as first year stars, especially Tara. This gets worse with Grace dancing Ethan's choreography instead of Tara in Episode 1, just because Tara missed one rehearsal.

During the period of Grace's friendship with Abigail, Grace is mean to Tara.

Realizing that Abigail has grown fond of Tara, Grace choses to convince Tara that Abigail is the one who despises her and not Grace. Tara moves in with Grace after this incident 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. 

Later, Grace also makes Tara drink "funky orange juice" (Episode 17), which in reality in the 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 her getting expelled.

When Tara is accepted back into the academy, she and Grace are better friends than before, 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, and therefore drives Tara and Grace apart.

Then Grace has an incident with her male teacher, Zach, and she tells Tara to tell Miss Raine a lie. Tara isn't sure, so she tells Miss Raine that "Grace said...". 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, "Red Shoes," and tells her that she is peforming it at the Internationals and she let her 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 early Season 3, 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, Grace redid Tara's part in a pas de deux with Ben, preferring to slip and ruing Ben's second chance in the exam than cause Tara to hate her for taking her place. Although Grace deliberately made a sacrifice there, Tara is upset.

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'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)