Ballerina Janie Taylor

This is one of my favorite pictures of Janie Taylor. When she was 4, she began her ballet training in Houston, Texas. At 12, she moved to New Orleans and started training at the Giacobbe Academy of Dance. She attended the School of American Ballet in 1994 and 1995 and joined full-time in the fall of 1995. In June 1998, she received the Mae L. Wien Award at the SAB Annual Workshop and was invited to become an apprentice with New York City Ballet. A month later, she became a member of NYCB's corps de ballet. She was promoted to the rank of Soloist in February 2001. Unfortunately her career was cut short, when in 2004, she was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an autoimmune disease that destroys platelets in the spleen. You can find more about Ballerina and Janie Taylor here