Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Former Royal New Zealand Ballet dancer wins $25,000 arts award
New Plymouth born Cameron McMillan, who began his career with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, was last night awarded one of three $25,000 New Generation Awards by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.
"We are delighted that Cameron's talent both as a dancer and
choreographer has been acknowledged through this prestigious award.
He was one of the stars at the RNZB and we've enjoyed working with
him recently as a choreographer during the hugely popularStravinsky
Selectiontriple bill. I was at the ceremony last night and it was
wonderful to catch up with Cameron and congratulate him in person,"
says Amanda Skoog, Managing Director, RNZB.
The Award acknowledges artists who have assured potential and
show outstanding promise. Recently described by The Observer UK, as
'one of the most compelling and intelligent dancers on the world
stage', Cameron is based in London and is an independent
choreographer, dancer and teacher.
He left NZ in 2001 to dance with English National Ballet and
later joined the Rambert Dance Company. He is now an
associate artist with DanceEast (the National Dance Agency of the
east of England) and has enjoyed a highly successful performance
and creative career spanning large-scale classical ballet
independent contemporary dance, film and fashion.
During his time at the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Cameron quickly
rose to the rank of principal dancer and performed many leading
roles including Prince Desire in The Sleeping Beauty,
James in La Sylphide, Jonathan Harker in Dracula
and creating the title role in Russell Kerr's Peter Pan.
He also danced key roles in shorter contemporary works
by Douglas Wright and Michael Parmenter among others. In 2008
he returned to the company as a guest artist to dance the role of
Romeo inRomeo and Juliet.
While with the RNZB he also showed great promise as a young
choreographer during the company's choreographic workshops.
In 1999 he created his first work Unsuspecting View, which
the RNZB toured nationally in 2001. In 2007 the RNZB commissioned
his acclaimed Equilibrium for performances in New Zealand
and Australia. In 2011 he returned to the company to create a
new work Satisfied with Great Success, which featured
designs by acclaimed fashion designer Karen Walker, and premiere as
part of in the triple bill Stravinsky
Selection.
ENDS: For interviews, images or further information contact:
Andrea Tandy, Media & Communications Manager.
andrea@nzballet.org.nz / 021 2444 450 or (04) 381 9002