SHE was once the darling of the Cairns Eisteddfod and now Kelicia O'Brien is dancing her way into the glamour of the French cabaret scene.

The 19-year-old beauty jets out of the Far North today bound for the French city of Soultzmatt to take up a 10-month contract as a dancer with the Le Paradis Des Sources theatre.

For Kelicia, a self-confessed "gangly" teenager, the move to France to work as a showgirl is the realisation of a childhood dream.

"People used to always tell me, ‘You’ve got such long legs, you’ll be in the Moulin Rouge one day’, so I think it just went from there," she said.

Living and working in Soultzmatt, on the France-Germany border, Kelicia will be some distance from the bright lights of Paris and the famous stage of the Moulin Rouge.

But she is content for now to take small steps.

"I am nervous, not about the dancing, I’ve done that for so long it’s almost like second nature really," she said.

"I’m more nervous about living by myself in another country and not being able to speak the language fluently."

See the full story on Kelicia in tomorrow’s cairnseye magazine, free in The Cairns Post.

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