ABOUT US

Director

Georgina Gaunt started teaching recreational ballet classes for City Dance Centre in Diamond Harbour in 2006. Throughout the intervening years, the school has grown significantly, with the addition of a yearly recital, examinations and the inclusion of a jazz syllabus, resulting in the formation in 2012 of Harbour Basin Dance, an independent dance school based in Lyttelton Harbour Basin.

Georgina has studied ballet and jazz extensively, passing with high marks in vocational examinations up to Intermediate in the Royal Academy of Dance Ballet Syllabus and Major in the Jazz Dance New Zealand Syllabus. Georgina also has some experience in the BBO Ballet Syllabus and NZAMD Ballet and Jazz Syllabus. She has studied other dance disciplines including contemporary, latin, tap, american jazz, character, and even belly dance! While a back injury limited her ability to sit further examinations, she started teaching junior classes and discovered a passion for teaching and choreography that led to her managing and operating this small dance school that she has worked to grow and improve.

Teaching Assistants

Older students who have expressed an interest in teaching are sometimes invited to act as teaching assistants for the younger classes. These students are learning to interact with young students, demonstrate exercises and see and correct errors in other dancers. They will also sometimes 'buddy up' with a dancer struggling with separation anxiety at the start of class, in the hope that it will be easier for their parent to leave.