The future looks promising for the three graduating dancers from the pre-professional program offered by Coast Academy of Dance (CAD).
Teenagers Michelle Millican, Tarah Kalman and Meghan Campbell have taken part in a program of intensive dance training in addition to their regular school work. With these skills, they might take up teaching dance or go on to other exciting performance opportunities such as Cirque du Soleil or musical theatre.
It not only helps with a teaching degree but it prepares them for the dance world, said CAD's artistic director Julie Izad. And it gives them the maturity they'll need.
As a professional dancer herself on European stages, Izad knows how difficult it is to take dance classes while keeping up grades.
It was either dance or my social life, said 17-year-old Michelle.
Last September when she was practising for examinations and her role in The Nutcracker, she had to make a choice. She chose dance. The program helped me go after what I wanted, Michelle said. It took me from a student to an adult.
The dancer is on her way to a special audition, and although nervous about the outcome, she knows that it's the only way to follow the dream. If selected, she will be entered into a database of talented dancers who await the chance to perform.
Izad is always happy when some of the former pre-professional students return to teach at the school. Christina Fitchett, for example, is one of the teachers on the CAD's roster who now trains others and has had a 100 per cent success rate from her students whom she has entered into qualifying exams.
The pre-professional program has run since 2006 and trains between four and eight dancers each year.
Every year it grows and gets stronger, Izad said.
