THE SOUTH Gippsland Dance Eisteddfod will see hundreds of performers from all over Victoria hit the stage at Leongatha Memorial Hall over four days from, tomorrow, Thursday July 31 to Sunday August 3.
Dancers between the ages of six and 18 will showcase the best of their talent in solo, duos, trios and group performances in the competition, which features hip hop, classical ballet to neo classical, song and dance, jazz, tap, contemporary and other styles.
“Hip hop's a big category now, with it being a solo in particular. It's always sort of been there, but it's grown over the years. Sometimes jazz is the big thing or classical, but it definitely changes throughout the years,” explained President Carley Nelson.
Carley will welcome adjudicator Renee Mandanici - Baldwin from Canberra who will judge and place the participants for this weekend’s competition.
With over 650 entries this year, Carley said the Eisteddfod just keeps growing and unfortunately, they have a cap on how many dancers and performances they can accept, with at least 200 to 300 people missing out.
The Eisteddfod has also had a change of venue for the first time in 14 years and will be held at the Leongatha Memorial Hall rather than the Mesley Hall.
“We work really well with the Leongatha Lyric Theatre Company and have been in conversations with them after they moved there for their productions - seeing how they set up the hall and everything like that,” said Carley.
“We just love the fact that it's in town as well, so the whole town can see that we put on a big event like this, that dancers are coming from all over Victoria to come to the South Gippsland Dance Eisteddfod.”
Carley mentioned that although the Mesley Hall has been a great venue in previous years, the Memorial Hall is now more suitable for the event.
“So, we use the Shire rooms for change rooms now and it's set up quite beautifully thanks to the Lyric Theatre.”
Carley said the support of Lyric Theatre has been exceptional and together both committees are pushing for a dedicated performing arts building.
“I suppose the performing arts and musical theatre isn't seen as a big priority to a lot of people, but it's really good to actually see how many people are willing to be involved. It's just a really happy thing to see how great committees are and how they support each other,” said Carley.
More volunteers are also needed over the next few days for a few different roles from front-of-house, backstage, or behind the scenes and all volunteers get an early entry code to next year’s competition.
