The Genee Dance Challenge - Wellington

Bond on Bond

This weekend we were busy with the Genee Dance Challenge.
It was held over Saturday and Sunday at the New Zealand School of Dance.

On Saturday each group had a class in Studio 4 with Christine Gunn.
Salem was in Group One which was made up of Grades 4 and 5.
It was a large group of 18 dancers, with 3 of this group being boys.
The boys were Salem (of course), Daniel and Issak.
Salem really enjoyed the class.

Then they each had a rehearsal of their dance seperately in another studio with Shannon Dawson (Royal New Zealand Ballet Educator).  He helped them with their entrances and spacing, etc.

Then on Sunday it was a real early trip into Wellington for a warm-up class at 9.15am.  It takes us a long time to get there so we had to leave home at 6.45am.

The adjudicators for today were Ms Turid Revfeim - Ballet Mistress for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Mr Peter Boyes Dip.Arch.Tech., A.I.Chor.

Salem was dancer No.8 and he really danced well.
He did his neo-classical "Bond on Bond" dance and did it with a lot of confidence.
He had put in a lot of practice for this.
He was then able to come and watch all the other dancers after he had performed.
There was a very high standard of dancing.
Two dancers were chosen from each level, there were four levels, to go on to the final.
Salem was thrilled that his friend Lokyee Szeto was chosen from his level.

It was very well organised and everything ran to time.
A great way to spend the day, watching some great ballet!!!!!!!