Pirouettes and pencils
A unique academy is turning young people into ballet dancers, while providing them with an education. Eleanor Wenman reports.
The teacher moves down the line of students, gently pressing on one girl’s back and adjusting another’s head so she stares directly ahead.
‘‘Take it through the foot, take the rise,’’ the handful of teens – all of them aspiring ballet dancers – is told.
It’s all part of a normal morning class at the Chilton Ballet Academy (CBA), the country’s only ballet academy combining dance and secondary school studies.
The academy is one of a handful of schools across New Zealand that offer academic study alongside a sporting pursuit. The Raglan Surf Academy, for example, has surfing classes, substantive surf training twice a week, and core classroom subjects.
The purpose of going to these specialist secondary schools is so that the pupils spend more time on the prime subject – surfing, ballet, or even snowboarding – than they would if they attended a regular secondary school. At Chilton, about half the day is spent on academics, and half on ballet. As Chilton Saint James is a private school, it could develop its own programmes to respond to the educational needs of its students, Ministry of Education deputy secretary Katrina Casey said.
‘‘There may be other private schools around the country that operate academies in a similar way but we are not responsible for them.’’
Now in its second year, the academy, which caters for students Year 10 and over, is attached to Lower Hutt-based private school Chilton Saint James. Nine aspiring ballet dancers gather in the studio throughout the week. Between drills on the barre, the dancers twirl across the floor. They become more relaxed as the class goes on, laughing and joking with their instructor between exercises. But they settle into deep concentration when it comes to dance.
Student Macy Cook, 14, has been dancing since she was three – although she only began ‘‘properly’’ at age 7. Dancing is her dream. She dances six days a week – with Sundays off – and often doesn’t make it home until 8pm during the week. It’s an intense schedule, but it’s fun. ‘‘The best thing is the amount of ballet we get to do,’’ she says. Fourteenyear-old Mason King is the academy’s only male student. He spends about 30 hours a week in training, ‘‘including conditioning work’’. Like most of the dancers, he takes afterschool dance classes and is part of the scholars programme at the New Zealand School of Dance. He became inspired to learn dance at age 9, after watching his younger sister. There were, however, few opportunities for aspiring male dancers in Hamilton at the time, so he joined in with the girls – something that prepared him well to be the only male student at Chilton Saint James.
‘‘I was used to just being around girls, so thanks to that it wasn’t that big of a move and I knew all the girls here really well.’’
Academy director Bronwyn Bennett long dreamed of setting up a ballet academy within the school.
She had run her own dance studio in the Hutt Valley for 20 years before signing on at Chilton Saint James as a classical ballet tutor.
When Kathy Lloyd-Parker became principal in 2015, she sat down with Bennett and asked her what she wanted in the school.
Bennett wanted a dance academy that tied in academic studies.
‘‘She said ‘sounds like a good idea’.’’
Bennett was stunned. She’d been asking various principals for something like this for years but had been turned down – scheduling was usually cited as the reason. All the CBA students take classes with the general students and their dance time is woven into the academic schedule.
‘‘If it was going to be worth doing I said it needed to be half a day of dancing.’’
However, she will not hesitate to remind students of their academic study obligations.
Chilton Saint James holds high academic expectations for its students, and aspiring dancers must pass both English and maths examinations, as well as a panel interview.
The academy runs a two-year programme with space for up to 15 students.
Nine students are taking the course this year.
Dance classes take place in one of the studios, tucked away on campus close to the school’s grand old reception house, and the students also take classes such as yoga and conditioning.
Students are expected to meet their University Entrance numeracy requirements in their first year.
In addition, they take English, psychology, drama and business and receive University Entrance through the Cambridge International Examinations – usually a year before mainstream high school students.
Full-time dance schools, such as the New Zealand School of Dance, often want students to start about age 16, meaning teenagers taking up dancing are leaving school with NCEA level one and no University Entrance qualifications, Bennett says.
‘‘This way, you’re allowing their bodies to start to do more instead of such a drastic transformation from part-time to fulltime.’’
The students are gradually pushed to a higher level throughout the year.
‘‘For students today it’s making them realise how hard they have to work if they want to make progress in the dance world.’’
Bennett is aware of some of the pitfalls of professional dancing, including recent news stories around weigh-ins and weight monitoring.
‘‘There’s no gory things like weigh-ins. There’s no way in the world I’m putting kids through that.’’
The academy is still in its early years and Bennett sees the work ahead of her.
‘‘I guess you could say we have to prove ourselves with the fact these kids come out healthy, they’re still enthusiastic, they know what they want to do but by still being in a school, they’re also normal 14 and 15-yearolds.’’
The academy is well on its way to proving its worth. Macy is flying to New York this month to take part in the Youth American Grand Prix, an international ballet competition where scholarships can be awarded, and dance company directors are on the lookout for new talent.
In dance competitions in Napier and Palmerston North, students scooped first places and nominations for the Performing Arts Competition Association of New Zealand.
Napier-based ballet teacher Diana Shand danced in the Royal New Zealand Ballet, performing here and overseas.
This year, her 15-year-old daughter, Taylor, started at CBA.
‘‘She’s loving it. She’s really loving it.’’
Shand used to teach Taylor herself but said the teacherstudent relationship interfered with the mother-daughter one. Taylor also felt she was slipping behind her peers in terms of dancing.
While Shand says the cost of school and boarding meant a huge financial sacrifice, she says it is worth it – not only for the leg up in a dancing career but because of the academic focus in the programme.
‘‘[Dancing] is a short career but as long as you have an academic background you can always go back to school. But if you really want to dance, you can’t go back and do that.’’
For students today it’s making them realise how hard they have to work if they want to make progress in the dance world. Academy director Bronwyn Bennett