Benefit boost for ballet school

Dunedin Ballet School owner Robyn Sinclair (right) shares a joke with teachers Lorissa Offen ...
Dunedin Ballet School owner Robyn Sinclair (right) shares a joke with teachers Lorissa Offen (left) and Lauren Oliver as the beginners class prepares back stage ahead of a benefit concert for the school.Photo by Craig Baxter.
Two weekend benefit concerts raised more than $10,000 for the Dunedin Ballet School, which was destroyed by fire in March.

About 700 people attended the concerts, held at the Kings and Queens Performing Arts Centre on Friday and Saturday nights.

About 60 Dunedin Ballet School dancers, singers Gladys Hope, Clare Barton and Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin, and the Dunedin Operatic Society contributed to the variety show.

In a special surprise for school owner Robyn Sinclair, former Dunedin Ballet School dancers Samantha Leonard and Jessica Hart-Joseph returned from studies at Sydney's Brent Street performing arts studios to give a special performance.

Mrs Sinclair was overwhelmed by the support.

"It is just amazing.

''I am totally blown away," she said.

"I have just been so humbled since the fire about what people have given to the studio.

"I really have no words to describe it."

Her studio and all its contents were lost when the Stavely Building in Jetty St, Dunedin, was almost destroyed by fire in March.

The money would go towards outfitting a new studio, she said.

Mrs Sinclair is negotiating a lease at a new site.

The school is holding its classes at Macandrew Intermediate in the meantime.

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