New steps for ballet dancer Eve Mutso as she goes solo

But after a glittering career with two national ballet companies, dancer Eve Mutso is once again finding her feet.

Estonian Eve made the decision to part ways with Scottish Ballet in January this year, leaving behind a company she had spent more than a decade dancing with.

Now she plans to strike out on her own, choreographing her own pieces both for herself and for other dancers.

The decision to leave, after 13 years with Scotland's national ballet company, seems to have come easier than you might expect.

Eve said: "It really comes from a feeling in me that this is the right time - I have been feeling it more and more and I wanted to go while the momentum is right.

"As a dancer, you feel an energy in yourself and the energy is right for me to be on my own after dancing with two national companies and do something different.

"It's doing something for myself"

The 35-year-old says she doesn't feel daunted about the prospect of dancing solo after being surrounded by a company of dancers who became like an extended family.

But the Estonian, who is still proud of her home country and shows her support by wearing Estonian designers, has a huge wealth of experience to draw on.

Eve was inspired to dance when her mother took her to see a performance of Swan Lake at the age of five.

She trained in her native Tallinn before joining the Estonian National Ballet and finally reaching Scottish Ballet in 2003.

The 13 years with the company saw her dance incredibly varied roles, which reflected the changes the dance company have gone through as it moved from being under the eye of Ashley Page, who is credited with putting Scottish Ballet on the international stage, to that of current artistic director and chief executive Christopher Hampson.

During her time with Scottish Ballet, Eve's personal life also underwent a significant change - in 2008 her daughter Hele-Riin was born with Eve returning to the stage 10 months after the birth.

Her final performance with the company was the acclaimed Christopher Hampson choreographed version of Cinderella, which wowed crowds through the Christmas period and into January this year.

She showed her tremendous versatility by playing some nights the ethereal Fairy Godmother and others the bullying, unpleasant Ugly Sister.

But one of the roles that stays with her is Blanche, in Tennessee Williams' drama, A Streetcar Named Desire, created for Scottish Ballet in 2012 by Nancy Meckler and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

The role involved both complex and technically challenging dancing from Eve but was also an emotionally difficult piece to play, particularly a scene where Blanche is raped.

Eve said: "I worked with such a range of different people during my time with the national company and all of them brought different and new techniques and ideas.

"All the steps I have danced during that time are still with me but it's time for me to find my own choreographic language.

"I feel that anything that happens to me can be expressed in dance but I am also looking forward to working with other dancers and seeing how they interpret my steps, my language.

"There is a great network in Glasgow for dancers if you know how to position yourself and how to make those connections so I am hopeful of exciting new collaborations too.

"Part of it is a compulsion to perform. I love that feeling as you step on stage - the audience is there for you, the musicians are there for you, the lighting, the other dancers, everything is there for you, supporting you.

"It's a wonderful feeling."

Eve has choreographed a piece for a new show, Bloom, at the south side's Tramway on June 3 and 4.

It brings together four artists who have not worked - or even met each other - before with three of the works being world premieres.

Two of these pieces use writing from two of the UK's best-known poets - Julie Cunningham's Right Where You Are uses poems by Kate Tempest, while Ballet of the Unseen by Charlotte Jarvis is inspired by work by Ben Okri.

The third work is a duet from Anima(l)[us] and Rosalind Masson called Between.

Eve's piece is one she says she hopes will have universal appeal as it is based on a topic she believes everyone can understand.

She said: "Unknown is about just that - stepping out in to the unknown, taking the risk of failure and of facing our fears.

"It's very personal to me because this is exactly what I'm doing so it's exploring that feeling. But I believe this is a feeling that is common to many people, that most people can relate to it. It's universal."

Tramway also houses the headquarters of Scottish Ballet, where Eve danced for 13 years, being promoted to principal in 2014, so the surroundings, if not the fellow dancers, will be familiar to her.

As part of the beginning of her solo career, Eve has been accepted by Dance UK for its Choreographers Observership Programme and will be working with Christopher Bruce, former Artistic Director of the famous Rambert Dance Company.

Unknown is not Eve's first solo choreography piece - last year at Dance Base during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, she performed ELEVEN.

Partway through the dance, Eve removes her pointe shoes to dance bare foot, expressing what it is like to break out of classical dance and perform in a new way.

The piece forms a perfect metaphor for Eve's move away from Scottish Ballet to a new career on her own.

Her future might be unknown but what is certain is that Eve's next steps will be entrancing.