Igotinjuredatthe theIraqwar.Asda riskinjurybutnot

themselves in grave danger. 5 Soldiers is about the impact this has on young men and women.”

Rosie, who was born in the Borders and went to school in Edinburgh, has been dancing since the age of three.

She recalled: “I took it very seriously but I really didn’t think you could do dance as a career when I was growing up. It felt like a total fantasy.”

At 16, she discovered contemporary dance and realised that was what she wanted to do with her life. She went on to study at the London Contemporary Dance School.

But after her first year, she thought her dream might be over when she was floored by glandular fever, which developed into chronic fatigue syndrome.

Rosie said: “I was super ill and tired all the time. I was trying to dance and do eight hours a day of physical stuff but I had to take a year out.

“Having discovered what I loved, I then pretty much thought, ‘That’s it over.’ I went from dancing and being active every day to feeling like I couldn’t do anything. Just going for a walk was a big deal.”

She slowly built up her strength, doing small amounts of exercise every day.

The dance school supported her and she managed to take up her place again a year later.

After graduating, Rosie landed a job with a dance company working abroad straight away.

But for years there were times when she’ have to move back in with her parents in Edinburgh between jobs.

Rosie said her early health battle helped her cope with those times.

Friends who had followed more conventional careers were buying their first homes while Rosie was often struggling to pay her rent – but she persevered.

She said: “Having a tough time early on helps you last the distance.

“Now all my friends are having a midlife crisis and saying, ‘Why are we working for the corporate machine?’, whereas I’m doing what I really wanted to do.”

She self-produced her first solo show in 1999, which she brought to the Edinburgh Festival.

Rosie recalled: “It was on at 11am in a church hall where four people and a dog came but that kick-started me and I realised it was possible.”

She set up the successful Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2004.

But just a few years later, aged 30, she faced her biggest test.

She said: “I was performing in a show I’d choreographed and I suffered a really serious leg injury on stage.

“We were serving dinner and I was dancing over people’s heads. A lift went wrong and to stop myself cracking someone over the head I had to dislocate my left knee.

“I was told I certainly wouldn’t dance again and it would take a year to walk again.”

She had surgery – and the anaesthetic had a big effect on her. Rosie said: “I had a vision that my leg had been blown off and I was in a desert and bombs were going off.

“It was around the time of the Iraq war and on the telly there were faces of young soldiers who’d been killed.

“I would have done anything to get back on that stage but as dancers we can risk injury but we don’t risk our lives.

“I looked at the faces of the soldiers and I thought, ‘I wonder if they love their job as much as I love mine’, or if there’s an element of adrenaline that allows them to risk not just limb but life. I wondered what their training was like.”

It gave her the idea for the 5 Soldiers show and she decided to find out first hand what Army life was like. So in November 2008, she spent two weeks attached to the 4th Battalion The Rifles.

Rosie learned to use a rifle and was invited to join the soldiers in an exercise fighting another battalion with laser packs.

She later visited a military rehabilitation centre – where she once again met some of the men she had trained alongside.

Rosie said: “I wanted to look at the making and breaking and putting back together of soldiers’ bodies. That was something I could identify with. It’s your livelihood but your body is also your identity.

“There’s this thrill of being able to do your job with this body that’s trained so precisely for that job. But that job is also to risk injury – and, for soldiers, maiming and death.

“People I’d been training with were coming back as amputees from Afghanistan.

“These were people you met who were 6ft 4in in training and coming back double amputees with a changed future.”

She ploughed her experiences into creating 5 Soldiers.

Rosie said: “Even though it feels crazy to mak it was somet understood.

“I felt I ha about it – I h way people c

Rosie did for a few mo to Louis Pric video projec and they hav son Gabriel.

Her show that she was officials to w current tour

She found

‘I wanted to look at the making and breaking and putting back together of s