“Jazz, ballet, hip hop, tap, contemporary and lyrical”. These are the different types of dance that Year 8 student Claudia Little performs.
Just listing all these genres is impressive, but for Claudia, that’s just a small piece of a big picture and she’s just about to take on a new challenge and one that she’s hoping will contribute to pursuing her dancing dream.
Claudia has been dancing since she was 6 years old and she attends the famous Carter-Chan, Dance Performance Centre in East Tamaki. Through dancing she’s had the opportunity to travel around the country and just recently, she, along with her new hip-hop crew ‘Velocity’, travelled to Hamilton for a competition. Here they went up against dance crews from around New Zealand and ended up winning, qualifying to go to Australia in September.
The feeling of victory and knowing that all the hard work and training had paid off, got Claudia excited but she did admit that when she heard the news of her crew winning she was quite surprised.
Also when asked about what motivates her when she’s about to perform and what helps her to get over her nerves, she replied saying that her famly, friends and also her co-dancers who are always there are a great support network.
She spoke about what get’s her going and what type of music she likes to dance to, and she said that particularly for hip-hop the music has to be upbeat.
Her tutors, Brandon Carter-Chan who is a former student of Sancta Maria College and current student Cameron Carter-Chan are two people who she looks up to and, knowing about the achievements that world-renowned dancer and Kiwi -Parris Goebel has been able to do, she wants to take dancing all the way and make a living out of it.
She’s looking forward to going to Australia and we wish her the best of luck.
Shontelle Matano
