Injury forces Katikati ballet star to sit out Tauranga show

A fleeting visit to the Bay of Plenty has not seen Katikati's international ballet dancer Ty King-Wall perform to his local loyal fan base, due to injury.
Four nights before Ty was due to fly to New Zealand to perform a lead role in the spectacular ballet, Don Quixote - based on a well known novel written by Spanish author Miquel de Cervantes , at Baycourt over the last week, he hurt an ankle and was unable to take to the stage amid much disappointment of wanting to give back to his loyal fans at home.
Ty injured his foot while training for a lead role in the Adelaide season of The Silver Rose and expects to be off stage four to six weeks following a bad ankle sprain.
Ty's mother Sue King of Katikati, told the Advertiser that things had been "absolute chaos' since Ty's injury which saw him have to quickly scout for another lead performer to replace him, so the show could go on.
"I have a lot of respect for him because he worked really hard behind the scenes to get a replacement", which came in the form of Tzu-Chao Chou.
Fellow lead performer Delia Mathews , who has carried a foot injury since Christmas, was replaced two months ago by Reiko Hambo. While injury is very much part of "dancing life", Sue said it was very unique, generous and accommodating of the Australian Ballet Company to lend the replacement dancers.
"Tauranga has seen some beautiful ballet - both [replacements] were soloists like my son, and Reiko Hambo had worked hard with Ty between other performances and training schedules in Australia to learn the part," she said.
And although injured, Ty had not been off his feet much while in New Zealand, instead working behind the scenes on the show and teaching young Tauranga dancers while here - meaning not much time at home with mother Sue, who with daughter Riah had also been volunteering time on the set.
"It has just been manic - this was very much a dancing visit for Ty and he was just absolutely gutted he couldn't perform in the show," she said.
"He was really looking forward to giving something back to his home-based supporters and he spent to so much time and effort working on this show between six other projects in Australia."
Sue said hopefully there will be another time that Ty can come back to perform. After Monday's night final performance of Don Quixote, Ty flew back to Australia early Tuesday.