Dance Moves

While the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s November tour of China was a huge success, the final performance was tinged with sadness as it was time to farewell three of the Company’s longest-serving dancers. Between them, Craig Lord-Sole, Geordan Wilcox and Vivencio Samblaceno Jr spent 44 years dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. However, audiences will be able to see Vivencio on stage again when he returns as a guest dancer in Romeo & Juliet, which opens in Palmerston North on 18 July.

Tonia Looker joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet at the start of this year and immediately started rehearsing for RED. An Australian, this is Tonia’s first job since graduating from the Australian Ballet School.

Rory Fairweather-Neylan, this year’s Todd Corporation Scholar, is another new face in the Company. Originally from Australia, Rory has been dancing since the age of six. He graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance last year shortly after he toured New Zealand with the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Cinderella.

Former Royal New Zealand Ballet dancer Marysa Dalton has left the company to join the West Australian Ballet where she will be dancing in their upcoming production of The Taming of the Shrew. She then hopes to find work in the USA.