Dance careers take off

Press, 23 November 1988, Page 25

Dance careers take off

Two young Christchurch dancers are successfully beginning ballet careers, on either side of the Tasman. Nineteen-year-old Chris Cavill has been accepted into the Royal New Zealand Ballet and 17-year-old Elizabeth Cumming has joined the Australian Ballet Company. Chris Cavill left Christchurch for Wellington and the New Zealand Ballet School as a 16 year old in 1986. He was accepted as a classical student and graduated in 1987.

This year he has been completing a postgraduate year at the school and appearing as a student dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. He will be in Christchurch later this year with the company’s tour of “Romeo and Juliet.” In January he will begin his career as a fulltime member of the company.

Elizabeth Cumming has spent this year at the National Theatre School in Melbourne after winning a scholarship at a summer school in the North Island.

Her intention had been to audition for a place in the Australian Ballet School, the national company’s training school, and at the end of three years there to audition for

the company. Instead she did a series of audition classes for the national company’s director after being seen in a National Theatre School

production during the year. She has a contract to begin dancing as a member of the company in January.