The 13-year-old ballet dancer from Malaga who has been offered a place at Paris Opera

Young Noah Torrón repeats the pose over and over again, as many times as it takes, until SUR's photographer gets the right shot. The ballet dancer is tired, but he continues to stand on his toes, jumping, spinning and smiling. He is a perfectionist and wants to do well, although his parents remind him that this video is not for a competition or for the Paris Opera.

Noah sent that video off a month ago and an in-person exam in the French capital did the rest. Noah, who is from Malaga, has been offered a place at Paris Opera and he will be training with the elite of the world of ballet. Alongside him only twelve other young dancers from all over the world, from Finland to Tokyo, have got in. "It's pretty impressive," admits the teenager.

The offer of a place in Paris comes after a year spent at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Danza Mariemma in Madrid, where Noah combined his artistic training with his first year of secondary school. And with good marks, he points out. Also in Madrid Noah had private classes with Gwenevere Pennegues at L'Ecole Francaise de Danse, to prepare himself for his goal.

Training at Mariemma was one dream, but Paris was always the "big dream". It seemed unattainable, but now it has happened thanks to Noah's talent, his parents and also the help he has received from the Fundación Málaga, which has awarded him one of its Talent Scholarships for the new academic year.

Noah's parents, Jorge Torrón, a piano teacher at the Martín Tenllado Conservatory and his mother, Soledad Fernández, who teaches music at the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Málaga (ESAD), moved to Madrid to accompany Noah during his first year at the Mariemma and to take him to the Cervantes Institute in the afternoons.

Their jobs allowed them to concentrate the class hours into intensive days so that one of them spent the first part of the week in Malaga and the other the second part of the week. Each month they took 16 trains between them. In the whole academic year they bought about 160 tickets from Madrid's Atocha station to María Zambrano in Malaga and vice versa. The parents recognise that the sacrifice was worth it and already in April, for example, Noah competed in the Global Dance Open held in Mérida, and won first prize in classical dance.

In Paris Noah has a residence within the school and can live on his own during school week, but it closes on Friday afternoons, so each week either Jorge or Soledad will fly to Paris to spend the weekends with their son in an apartment they have rented there. At the same time Noah will continue at the Real Conservatorio Mariemma in Madrid, where he will sit exams in June 2026.

Despite his youth, Noah is fully aware of the sacrifice his parents are making and is grateful for it. "I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own, without their financial and mental support and all the patience they've had with me, because they've been so stressed with all the travelling. But it has been worth it," says Noah, while his father nods at his side.

Noah was in fact born in Vietnam: "I am Vietnamese, I was born in Hanoi. It's nice to talk about my origins, I don't mind. Since I was eight years old I've wanted to go and discover my ancestors, the culture and the language, I find them very interesting", says the young dancer, who was adopted by Jorge and Soledad when he was 17 months old and they brought him to Malaga.

The next step is to do an intensive French summer course in France, before joining the Paris Opera school as a student in September. This summer there is little time for the Play Station, Noah recognises, but he says he doesn't mind. "I have it there for when a friend comes over, but 99 per cent of my time is not on it". His whole world at the moment is dance. "And work pays off, I've experienced that this year," he adds with surprising maturity.

In the future Noah says he would love to dance in ballets like El Corsario, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker in a large theatre and he might get there sooner than he thinks. At Christmas the pupils of the Parisian dance school dance at Paris's Opéra Garnier to show the public what they have learned. When he explains this, his eyes light up.