Dance Journal Entry No.4 - Russell Kerr

This is another entry in Salem's Dance Journal which is part of his British Dance Theatre Association's Intermediate exam.

Russell Kerr

Choreographer for

The Royal New Zealand Ballet's

Swan Lake

Russell Kerr is one of New Zealand's most famous ballet choreographers who is respected for his ability to tell stories through musical movement. He has made more than 65 dance works for companies including the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the Limbs Dance Company.

He is a choreographer, a teacher and mentor to generations of dancers, and has directed and produced works for companies including the Auckland Ballet Theatre, the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Southern Ballet Theatre.

He was born in Auckland in 1930 and studied ballet in his teens with Kathleen Whitford.  In 1950 he went to Europe to train and he danced with the Jose Greco Spanish Company,  the Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, and the Ballet Rambert, then became a soloist with the London Festival Ballet.

He returned to New Zealand in 1957 and continued his dance career as a teacher, a choreographer and a producer.  He was the director of the Nettleton-Edwards-Kerr School of Ballet from 1959 to 1961.  In 1962, He took over from Poul Gnatt as the New Zealand Ballet's Artistic Director and led the company until 1968.

He staged full length ballets with live orchestras and international guest dancers, and he also created some modern ballets for the company's repertoire which included Concerto (1963), Mephisto (1964), and Peter and the Wolf (1962). Four of his ballets are in the current repertoire of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

He was the director of the New Zealand Dance Centre from 1969 to 1977.  Then he was director of the Southern Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1990. He was teaching, coaching, choreographing and producing their youth performance works till his retirement in 1990. Not that he really “retired”.

From 1992 to 2003 he was the Royal New Zealand Ballet's guest director for Petrouchka and did choreographies for Swan Lake, Peter Pan and A Christmas Carol.  And again was the guest director for Pretrochka in 2011.

With dancers of the Royal New Zealand Ballet

In 2005 he Created a new full-length ballet based upon the secret life of Hans Christian Anderson. He is still very busy even now. I was lucky enough a few years ago to meet him, chat with him and listen to him talk about how he choreographed Peter Pan for the RNZB.

He is an Icon Artist of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, was awarded the Queen's Service Medal (QSM) for Services to Ballet in 1986 and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2000.

His work includes:
Hans Christian Andersen (2005)
Opus 17 for 71 (2004)
A Christmas Carol (2001)
Peter Pan (1999, 2010)
Swan Lake (1996)
Journey (1989)
Te Maia and the Sea-Devil 1987)
Terrible Tom (1985)
Salute (1983)
Scripting the Dreams (1982)
Prismatic Variations with Poul Gnatt (1959)

- Researched and written by Salem Foxx

Dance Journal Entry No. 3

Salem's Dance Journal

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Jazz Exams

When I was at Summer School at the New Zealand School of Dance in January, one of the classes was jazz.  I had not done jazz since I had finished doing Grade 2.  This class was a lot of fun so I thought I would do jazz again.

So this year I did Grade 5 NZAMD Jazz.  Jazz has more sharper moves than ballet but sometimes I slip back into ballet habits.  When I am practicing jazz up at the studio at th gym, Mum says "This is jazz, not ballet!!".  This makes me laugh.

On Thursday the 26th September I did my Grade 5 Jazz exam at KDC.  There were four of us in our exam group.  There was Hannah, Ainslie and Florance.

Our examiner was Mrs Patten.  She was very nice and made the exam very easy.

The next day I did my Intermediate Bronze Jazz Medal Award.  I had to do my jazz exam dance.  This time I was in a bigger exam group with my friend Bethany.  Our parents were allowed to watch us this time.  It was nice to have an audience.

Mrs Patten was very friendly and talked to us about our dancing and gave us tips too.  She presented us with our medals.

I got Distinction (95% +) for Grade 5 Jazz exam.  And I got Excellence Plus (highest mark) for my Intermediate Bronze Jazz Medal Award.

Dance Journal Entry No. 2

Salem's Dance Journal

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Intermediate Foundation Exam

Warming up in the dressing room.

The last time I was at the New Zealand School of Dance was when I did my RAD Intermediate Foundation exam on the 5th of September.  My examiner was Miss Wu.

I was very sick on exam day, I had been sick all week and in bed.  I didn't do as best as I could but I did pass my exam.

I did my exam with Josephine from Kapiti Dance Centre and two girls from Mary Rodgers Ballet School.
They did a few of the exercises very different than me and Josephine.

Ready for my exam.

This was my second year doing Intermediate Foundation, it was getting very boring.
My favourite exercises are the Adage and the third Allegro.
I am glad I was able to do the classical boys variation and not the other one.

Junior Associates Audition, ABTC Comps and Dance Journal

Practicing for Ameno.

Last weekend was very, very busy.
So much for a rest on Labour Weekend.
Friday evening it was class as usual and Salem had a very enjoyable class.
He is gaining more acrobatic skills.

He had to miss his Acrobatic class on Saturday as he attended the audition at the New Zealand School of Dance for the Junior Associates program.
We had to leave very early and got there in good time thanks to Grandma, so he could warm up in time for the classical class at 8.45am.

Salem will write more about that later in this post as he is now writing a dance journal as part of his work for doing BTDA Intermediate Ballet.

Being Siegfried.

After the audition we went out to the Hutt for the Associated Ballet & Theatre Club Inc's (ABTC) Competitions at the Little Theatre in Lower Hutt.

I had booked us into the Angus Inn as it was not worth going back and forward to Paraparaumu over the weekend.  This was so much easier.
Luckily they let us check in early as we had a few hours before Salem had his first dance.

It was so nice relaxing in a nice hotel room and not having to hang out in the dressing room for hours.
We enjoyed our stay there!!!!

Looking very Polish.

Salem did very well over the two days of comps especially as he was performing all new dances which he had choreographed himself.  Everyone commented on his Krakowiak costume which he loved wearing.

He has won another trophy for coming first for the Classical Impromptu.

His results are:

1st Place -  Classical Impromptu 12 years and over
3rd Place -  Barefoot Impromptu 12 years and over
3rd Place -  Character 13 years
VHC -  Classical 13 years
VHC -  Barefoot 13 years
VHC - Lyrical 12 years and over.

Salem will write more about the comps in another post soon.
Here is his first Journal entry:

Salem's Dance Journal

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New Zealand School of Dance

On Saturday the 26th of October, I had to go to the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington, so I could audition to try to get into the Junior Associates.

I had to be there very early in the morning.  There was a lot of other dancers too.  There were four other boys as well but the rest were girls.

We had to get our numbers, I was number 37.  Then we went into one of the studios to have a warm up.

Eating my cheese and crackers.

Then we all went into Studio 1 for a ballet class.  All of us boys had to go down the back so we couldn't see what was happening very well.  The class went for one and a half hours then we had a break.  I had cheese and crackers.

After that we had a contemporary class which wasn't as long.  The best bit was doing an impromptu.  That was fun but the music choice was horrible.

UPDATE:  Salem was accepted on the New Zealand School of Dance Associate Programme.
He is now a NZSD Junior Associate Contemporary Major.