Former Royal New Zealand Ballet dancer wins $25,000

Media Release – 3 October 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 for four years, 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 popular Stravinsky Selection triple 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 in Romeo 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

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