Dancers leap to national stage

Dancing high: Xavier Pellin, Claudia Bolam, Lucy Hogan, Jasmine Susic and Gemma Richards are ready to take a great leap forward in their dance careers.

A GROUP of talented local ballet dancers has taken a step closer to stardom after being offered places in the nation’s most prestigious dance academies.

The Lisa Pellin dance students, Xavier Pellin (offered a spot at the Australian Ballet School), Gemma Richards (offered a spot at the National Theatre Ballet School), Jasmine Susic (offered a spot at the Victorian College of the Arts), and Lucy Hogan and Claudia Bolam (both offered interstate training programs with the Australian Ballet School), were celebrating the only way they know how – dancing at the Leongatha studio.

Xavier is the son of head tutor, Lisa.

For the talented dance instructor, the news of her charges’ success is welcome, but not a huge surprise. The youngsters work hard and get the rewards.

“It’s an amazing buzz for the kids and a really great opportunity. We’ve operated the studio for 20 years and we’ve had quite a few kids go on,” Lisa said.

“We’ve had a few kids go through the interstate training program with the Australian Ballet School, a few go through the National Theatre Ballet School and a few go through the National Institute of Circus Arts, which is really good. That’s what you train them for.”
Lisa said “the standard that’s coming out of this school speaks for itself”.

“All the kids that have been offered places are really good workers. They’ve all been through our accelerated program, which is developed around the Russian method of classical ballet,” she said.

“It’s really put them in good stead to go on to future positions.”

Lisa believes her successful students feel “honoured” in being offered positions at the esteemed schools, but were not allowing themselves to think too far ahead.

“They’re just taking every step in their stride, I guess. They know too that it’s a really long, hard road ahead of them. It’s a matter of one thing at a time, chipping away at it,” she said.

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Posted by Jacob De Kunder on Oct 9 2012. Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry