16-year-old South African dancer Leroy Mokgatle has received a scholarship at Switzerland’s Prix de Lausanne after winning the “audience favourite” award at the schools ballet competition.Mokgatle is the first South African to receive the scholarship in 28 years and only the second ever from his nation, and it follows his gold medal win and Margot Fonteyn Audience Award at the Genee International Ballet Competition in London last year when he was just 15.The youngster performed both contemporary and classical dance at the event, to become the first South African since Ann Wixley in 1988 to receive a scholarship.Hailing from Boskruin, Mokgatle will not be able to study at any of the 66 Prix de Lausanne partner schools or dance companies in the world. Currently a trainee at the Art of Motion school in Randburg, Johannesburg, his school said that the competition was an “extraordinary experience, one that will remain with us forever,” and commented in their Facebook page “The first for SA in 28 years and the second in SA history. Thank you to the world audience for voting our SA candidate as their audience choice.”
↧