Grace Whitney

Grace Whitney
Information
Full Name	Grace Whitney
Gender	Female
Eye Color	Blue
Hair Color	Dirty Blonde
Network
School(s)	Royal Ballet School (prior to her appearance) National Academy of Dance
Affiliation(s)	Miss Raine (god-mother)
Production
Portrayed By	Issi Durant

Grace Whitney is a powerful dancer that made her appearance in the first episode of season 2. It is shown that she came from the Royal Ballet School in London. Her dad is getting remarried, and she was lately put into house arrest the last month. In the future, it is hinted her and Abigail will become good friends, if not future rivals. Her godmother is Miss Raine which probably means she will have special treatment.

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 picture of herself and her mother in the late Eighties: they were very good friends. When Grace's mother became depressive, Miss Raine blaimed her father for it but seeing how this judgement affected Grace, she takes it back. This revelation must have given Grace more confidence in herself and makes her go see Zac, the dance teacher, to ask him to push her more so that she can keep enjoying dancing.

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 naturel 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 braking several pairs of pointe shoes and blaiming 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 mischievious personality.

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. They become friends, and their friendship grows stronger as Tara discovers Kat's love for Christian. Grace, of course, has been engineering this whole drama by texting Chris from Kat's phone and inviting the boys to join them at a slam, in order to win Tara over. Garce is also the one that convinces Tara to break school rules and see an outside doctor for her broken back. Later, Grace also makes Tara drink "funky orange juice" (Episode 17), which in reality in orange juice with alcohol, and consequently makes Tara drunk. Tara is still very close to her in Episode 18, but at the circus, the trapeze exercice reunites Tara and Kat because they truly trust each other, and therefore drives Tara and Grace apart.

Sammy Lieberman

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

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.

Zac

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, Zac 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.

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.

Quotes

• "If I was battling that far out of my league, I'd be singing it from the rooftops too."