Queenstown ballet pupils rack up royal results

NATASHA HOLLAND/Southland Times/Image ID 110932

LIFE BEGINS AT 40: Queenstown School of Dance pupils Ella Ferguson, 12, and Kaori Hinomoto, 40, successfully sat Royal Academy Classical Ballet exams.

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Kaori Hinomoto, of Japan, is living proof that when an opportunity arises in life people should "grab it".

Ms Hinomoto, 40, was an aspiring ballet student in Japan and danced until she was 18 but never sat a ballet exam. She had always wanted to be a dance teacher but at university studied speech and communication.

A year ago she moved to New Zealand and her daughter started dancing with the Queenstown School of Dance.

She started talking to dance teacher Lee van der Schuit, and began adult ballet classes. From there, she rekindled her desire to be a dance teacher herself. The first step was to sit the Royal Academy of Classical Ballet intermediate exam, which she passed with merit.

Ms van der Schuit said it was the first time in Queenstown an adult had sat a classical ballet exam, and Ms Hinomoto had spent three months preparing for it. She even had to do pointe work, which she hadn't done in 22 years.

Ms Hinomoto now has a chance to apply for the Royal Academy of Dance three-year teaching programme, which costs about $10,000.

The dance school's other success was Ella Ferguson, 12, who is one of six dance pupils in Central Otago to have passed the Royal Academy of Dance intermediate foundation exam with distinction. Each week Ella travelled to Alexandra for extra tuition to prepare for the exam.

- © Fairfax NZ News