Anyone who has strolled through LondonÕs Covent Garden will have noticed the bronze cast located just off Bow Street in Broad Court, opposite the Opera House. The life-size statue of a dancer sitting on a high stool, wearing a leotard and toe shoes, has inspired the name of the Italian restaurant just steps away: La Ballerina.

The tranquility, grace and introspection of this woman as she adjusts one of her shoes contrast with her manifest strength; latent energy and the movement of the dance course through her even though the act she is performing is a low-key one. She has great presence, her stillness and concentration the more noticeable because of the buzz of the crowded pedestrian zone that surrounds her.