Danté Grootjes is not your average teenager, he’s on the fast track to success in hopes of becoming a world-renowned ballet dancer. To make it happen, he is enrolled in a hybrid high school program that allows him to graduate early while attending extra dance classes.
“For me, dance is number one,” said Grootjes, who is a professional student dancer.
Grootjes has been the principal male dancer at the Mission Dance Company in Kelowna, B.C., for two years, where he has taken on the iconic roles of the Nutcracker, the prince in Swan Lake and s many others. Sometimes he is playing multiple characters per show because there are not many male ballet dancers.
“Every dancer’s journey is slightly different than another’s,” said Tanya Vadurova, Mission Dance Company’s artistic director. “When anyone wants to become a professional ballet dancer, they have to have that work ethic and the goal-setting and the focus and the determination, the grace, the intelligence and all those beautiful characteristics and when they go away to other professional schools, they learn very valuable lessons.”
Vadurova will be losing Grootjes in her company as he sets out to achieve one of the goals he has set for himself: to train at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. He got a taste of it at this year’s summer program and has earned himself a spot in the Professional Division’s Ballet Academic program this fall.
“You take classes every single day for three weeks and they basically evaluate you, see how you fit in, how your technique is, how you get along with the peers, do you fit their style of dance and from there they send out acceptance or rejection letters and I was lucky enough to be one of the 40 per cent to get acceptance into the full year,” Grootjes said.
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The letter of acceptance means that Grootjes will be on a plane in two weeks to attend school, however, he and his family are feeling the crunch financially. Funding they were hoping to rely on from School District 23 as well as from other grants did not come through because Grootjes is under 18 and would be attending school out of the province. That means they have two weeks to raise thousands of dollars.
“The cost of the program is about $28,000 so it covers the ballet tuition, his academic tuition as well as his room and board,” said Kat Grootjes, Danté’s mom. “So we have been working really hard in this short time frame to try to come up with all the potential sources of funding that we can. We have an online fundraiser, we have been collecting bottles, he is working full-time, I am putting money aside as well. I am a single mom and I have two other children I am supporting.
“So we are really turning to the community to help me help him.”
So far they have raised $10,000, leaving them to continue fundraising the remaining $18,000. For more information about how you can help make Danté’s dream a reality, visit www.makeachamp.com.
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