Progress on ballet theatre

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 4

Progress on ballet theatre

Reconstruction work for the $30,000 ballet theatre for the Southern Ballet Company, in the old engineering block at the Arts Centre, is progressing well. The company hopes to hold a performance there by the end of the year. An appeal in “The Press” six weeks ago for 4000 sec-ond-hand bricks was most successful, according to the Southern Ballet Trust’s fundraising manager, Mr Arthur Oliver. “They came from old ladies, businesses, all sorts of places,” he said. The stage for the new theatre, which will be the

only one in New Zealand just for ballet, is progressing well. Yet to come is the seating for 100, a doorway to accommodate wheelchairs, a staircase up to the back of the seating, carpets, and curtains.

Mr Oliver is happy to take gifts in materials or money and said that any contributions would qualify for a 50 per cent tax deduction.

In the long term, the trust hopes to do something about the ceiling of the theatre to improve its acoustics, but this will depend on finances. Mr Russell Kerr, who was

appointed director of the company in February, 1978, is a former director of the New Zealand Ballet. Before his 1978 appointment he had his own ballet company, the New Zealand Dance Centre, in Auckland. The Southern Ballet has 33 dancers. Students, from kindergarten to professional level, are taught in two studios in the Arts Centre, one above the new theatre and one beside it. A wardrobe room is in the same area.

This year the company has performed for about 10,000 pupils in schools

throughout the South Island; at the moment it is dancing in Christchurch schools. Major performances will still be given in the James Hay Theatre — such as the company’s fifth birthday performance of three ballets in early July. The new theatre would be used regularly for the presentation of a variety of ballets, said Mr Kerr.

“They will be ballets with public appeal, classical ballets, and experimental ballets,” he said. “The theatre will open up a whole new area of development for the company.”