Ballet Dancer in Training

Ballet Dancer in Training

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Upper Hutt Comps June 2014





Upper Hutt Competition Society
Competition Results 
20-22nd June 2014

Salem received a Upper Hutt Competition Society Incentive Award for Restricted Jazz.


Results for the weekend were:

Second Place - Restricted Jazz

Third Place - Musical Theatre

Very Highly Commended - Self Choreographed

Highly Commended - Contemporary
                         Lyrical
                                      Jazz Impromptu


Salem competed at the Upper Hutt competitions for the fist time in June and had a lot of fun.
A new theatre to dance in and some new faces for him to compete against.


Warming up backstage for lyrical

It was a nice big stage at Expressions Theatre and the boys had two dressing rooms to themselves which was a bonus.


In the dressing room.

It was a modern and tap competition, so no ballet this time and it will be a little while yet before he competes in tap.




They had a self choreography section which required a time limit of two minutes, Salem had wanted to do his acro dance "Safety Dance" but that was well over that time.  So he choreographed a new acro dance "Cotton Eye Joe" for a bit of fun and performed it for the first time at these comps.
Hopefully he will get to perform it again.


Cotton Eye Joe





Truffles was due for another performance so this time Salem entered "Robin Hood" in the Musical Theatre category so he sang while he danced.  He was very nervous beforehand as he had never sung on stage but he had a real blast doing it and achieving a third placing was a bonus.


Robin Hood and Truffles


He was a bit dissappointed with the Jazz Impromptu section as they played a very contemporary piece in which basically everyone danced contemporary while Salem, being the Aspie (Aspergers) that he is, only did jazz steps which was very, very hard with the choice of music.  Well done him for keeping to the style!!!!


Warming up for jazz

All in all it was a great weekend, just lot's of time spent travelling and getting home very late.
Public transport is pretty bad on the weekends especially when the trains are replaced by buses making for a very long journey indeed.


Incentive Award for Jazz

Salem is on TV




Tomorrow morning Salem is appearing in his own documentary on TVNZ1's "Attitude" at 8.30 am.
Salem is talking about having Aspergers Syndrome and his love of dance.

It shows him at home, at practice, classes, getting ready for exams and travelling up to Auckland for the British Theatre Dance Association's Auckland Festival.

He had a lovely film crew who were very supportive.  Thanks guys!!!!!

Here is the promo for the programme.



Salem is very nervous to see the finished product.
He will be at day two of the Associates Weekend when the documentary is shown, but we don't get tv anyway so he can watch it On Demand when he gets home.

I'll put up the link when it become available.