Behind the Scenes

 

Lara James was born on 26th June 1982 in St Augustines Hospital, Durban.  She grew up in the little town of Scottburgh where she started learning the Imperial Ballet Method through Miss Wendy Reinhart with her sister, Angela van Wyngaard.  They both then moved onto Gymnatics and dreamt great dreams of participating in the Olympics!  From there she continued with Ballroom and Latin American Dance, along with her sister, four brothers and occationally her mom and dad as well.  She completed her Bronze and Silver bar exams and participated in numerous competitions in in KZN.  At the same time and starting Freestyle Dance classes through Beryl Celliers and once again was very successful in her exams and compeitions.  After her family moved to Pietermaritzburg, Lara stopped dancing through her high school career and once matriculating the fire of dance once again burned within.  Lara then started dancing again at the age of 19, through Colleen Boote School of dance with the help of Clare von Weichard.  To catch up on the many years of missed training, Lara dance the grade below her, her own classes as well and observing the classes above her.  This was in the DASA and RAD Classical Ballet Method.  At the age of 20, Lara did her Intermediate Foundation Ballet exam followed the next day by her Intermediate Exam. The following 2 years she worked towards her DASA Advanced Performance Exam in which she earned a distinction.  She then continued with her RAD Intermediate and Advanced 1 exams achievinig Merits in both exams.  At this stage, Lara decided that her career was definitely moving in the diretion of teaching dance and with he help of Laina Lesicnik, Lara completed her DASA teachers and 2 years after that achieved her RAD CBTS Teachers certificate.  Lara performed in many shows and ballet concerts and then continued her ballet training in the Cecchetti Method doing her Intermediate and Advanced Exams through Maryka Carter-Brown and Julia Powell.  She won a bursary award through Megan de Byer.  Lara then moved to Durban and started teaching the RAD syllabus.  She realised a need for dance classes for adults who had previously danced and those who always wanted to dance so in 2009 "Adult Ballet Classes in Durban" began.  Lara then started teaching dance classes to Pre Schoolers in 2010 and opened her own home ballet shop "The Ballet Lady" where she now has an agency to sell Sansha Dance gear, Teplov shoes and Mikido tights and so much more.  Lara sews her own leotards, skirts and accessories and had growin into doing studio show costumes.   In all this, thanks to her husband Jonothan James for putting up with all the ballet accesories strewn through their home and their lives!

 

Here's to you Lara!  And that Jesus will be with you, keeping you safe and helping your business to be successful as you put Him first and serve others in their needs!  Here's to many more years of dancing and beautiful dance gear and changing the lives of dancers young and old.