Tutu time with the English National Ballet

Who better to twirl into the season's most theatrical party dresses than the English National Ballet's stars?..

Contrary to appearances, the dancers of the English National Ballet do eat. These ethereal bodies, soon to be seen floating across the stage of the London Coliseum in The Snow Queen, take a hungry tea break from the ES photo shoot, congregating backstage to devour sandwiches. Two of them sit on the floor with their legs splayed at improbable angles, while a third stands munching, her feet in a perfect fourth. Her leg extends gracefully behind her as she reaches for another sandwich. It's like a Degas pastel, with added snacks.

'Well, we burn off 4,000 calories a day,' says Artist of the Company Nathan Young, 21, who grew up on Australia's Gold Coast, where he danced from the age of four (he wanted to copy his elder sisters but soon outshone them). 'At least,' he continues, 'the male dancers do, because we have a lot of throwing and catching to do.' He makes it sound like rugby but he is actually referring to a key scene in The Snow Queen, in which a pack of lusty wolves dance obeisance to their mistress.

'We lift her high in the air and basically make her fly without ropes.'

Small wonder that when he gets home, Nathan often takes an ice bath to ease his aching limbs. 'If you've got lots of lactic acid in your muscles, it really helps. I just empty a party pack of ice cubes into a bath and sit in it for ten or 15 minutes,' he says cheerfully. Does the girlfriend he shares a flat with (a student of arts marketing) hear his screams from the bathroom? 'It's only a shallow ice bath,' he smiles. 'A deep one would kill you.'

He is also cheerful about having to perform, again and again, a grand jeté for our shoot, leaping tirelessly into the air on the count of one. Landing is less fun; the Alleyn's School theatre (Jude Law studied there) where we are shooting is immaculately equipped but its stage is not sprung like the Coliseum's. Nathan puts a brave face on it. He's in touch with the masculinity of the male ballet dancer. 'In a historical sense, tights and make-up are highly macho, right?'

Zhanat Atymtayev, 33, a Soloist born in Kazakhstan, agrees. He trained as a dancer at the behest of his father, a driver, and he is a picture of taciturn masculinity, sitting waiting for his close-up. Later I notice sweaty men from the technical crew ribbing the boys about their baby blue Swarovski-spangled coats. 'Very butch,' says one. Nathan laughs; Zhanat doesn't appear to hear.

The girls are thrilled to be wearing ballgowns by Nina Ricci and Versace instead of ballet costumes. Eyes glowing with contained excitement, they snap each other with their camera phones in the changing rooms. Dressing up is part of their daily life, but high fashion is still exciting, especially since many of their costumes are more characterful than glamorous.

Nicola Henshall, a charming, big-eyed 19-year-old from Stoke on Trent, plays a peasant in Giselle and a gypsy girl in The Snow Queen. Laurretta Summerscales, 17, tells me she is playing 'mice and cheese' in The Nutcracker, and she also has two roles in Giselle: 'a villager, and one of the willies.' The willies? 'They're like spirits.' As in, gives me the willies? 'Yes!' Brimming with shy excitement, Laurretta, 17, is the baby of the company, recruited a year early from the English National Ballet School by artistic director Wayne Eagling, who spotted her exuberant promise. 'I love jumping and pirouettes. I'm not very neat; I just go for it!' She grew up in Woodham, Surrey, and attended her mother's modern dance school, but always secretly preferred the stricter discipline of ballet. This month will see her debut at the Coliseum. 'It will be the first time I've ever stepped on the stage,' she says.

Jennie Harrington, 27, from Richmond in Surrey, has been with the company for six years, and has the ankle to prove it. 'It's become very aggravated. Basically the tendon and the muscle are a bit maimed.' She's having an operation to 'clean' the tendon tomorrow but today she's smiling blithely about it. 'Crying won't help, will it?' she says. Clearly, a positive attitude is what she admires. Her favourite dancer is Darcey Bussell: 'Because she was teased when she was younger and I think a bit of adversity makes you... stronger.' Nicola Henshall, on the other hand, looks up to Marianela Nuñez, the Argentinian star of the Royal Ballet. 'She just makes everything look so easy even though you know she's a really hard worker.'

Shy, giggling and seemingly terrified of talking to me is Shiori Kase, 17, from Japan.

She shrinkingly admits that she studied at the Royal Ballet School for three years, has been with the ENB for three months, that her favourite dancer is also Bussell, and that she talks to her mother in Japan every day by Skype. She is about to tell me her guilty pleasure (cream cakes, I think) when she is called from the dressing room to pose with the others in a full-scale tableau. Up there on stage she is poised and self-possessed, twirling on the arm of Nathan and smiling as if she was born to wear Nina Ricci.

Finally, an audience with the Snow Queen herself. Sarah McIlroy, 35, is a Principal, of whom The Daily Telegraph once raved: 'The stage is a bit empty when she's not around.' But far from behaving grandly, she greets me in a slightly whiffy boys' changing room with a half-eaten sausage sandwich in her hand. Sitting in a comfy tracksuit, she tells me how fun it is to play a meanie ('It's good to be evil sometimes'), how she implicitly trusts her wolf-minions ('They would never drop me, I know that'), and all about the perils of exfoliation. 'When I'm on holiday I think I'll get some of the hard skin off my feet, but then when I come back to work, I always regret it. You need a blister on each toe before you get comfortable again.' With a 12-year-old son and a boyfriend who works as a technician in the crew, she convinces as a warm, thoroughly normal human being. Then you see her on stage, working the icy magic and shattering ballet moves that only five hours of hard physical practice six days a week can produce - and all you can do is shudder.