NEW ZEALAND DANCERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22231, 4 October 1935, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND DANCERS

IMAGINATION LACKING STANDARD AMONG CHILDREN That New Zealand children are generally speaking rather lacking in imagination is the opinion of Mr. Felix Demery, of London, examiner in operatic dancing for the Hoyal Academy of Dancing, .who has been conducting examinations of pupils and teachers in Auckland, Napier * and Palmerston North, and is now in Wellington. Over 100 children have undergone tests before him in New Zealand, and ho stated in an interview that the general standard was good. Mr. Demery said, however, that ho noticed children did not show originality in some of the tests providing scope for initiative. In miming, for instance, the pupils might be asked to plant a garden The ordinary child sjrnply went through the motions of planting seeds, whereae the imaginative child discovered a slug or pricked her finger on a thorn or something of that kind. New Zealand children, nevertheless, were versatile and receptive, as had been shown by exhibitions of their dancing he had seen, and appeared to him to be quite musical. The Dominion dancing teachers reached n very fair standard, he considered. Most of them wore undoubtedly proceeding along the right road in their methods of instruction. In New Zealand, of course, a dancing teacher had to be a general practitioner, whereas in England, especially in London, each teacher was a specialist, dealing with only one kind of dancing.