Dancer leaps at big chance

By LINDA HERRICK

When New Zealand-born dancer Amir Giles and his family lived in Israel during his teen years, he grew up in a strict Zionist community in the Galilee region. His ambition, to be a rabbi, was fairly normal, given the circumstances.

"I was at a Jewish religious studies school after I left school - it was fullon; you say a thousand prayers a day and learn the 613 laws. I took it very seriously. I've got an extreme nature, I like to do things all the way."

When Giles was 18, he did go all the way - in the other direction. "Through a series of intellectual roller-coasters and soul-searching questions, I decided to leave the faith," he says on the phone from London, where he's been based for a year. "I left the faith and Israel at the same time and came back to New Zealand, on my own."

Giles started a BA in history at Auckland University, but something stronger was filling his head.

"I loved studying and I still do but I'd always been interested in dance. But in a strictly religious community there's little outlet for ambitions as trivial as dance. Boys and girls were not allowed to dance together and in most Western societies there aren't many guys that like to dance anyway."

He started taking classes in Ceroc, the internationally popular "modern partner dance" which mixes boys and girls with swing, salsa, jive and jazz.

"It's a great introduction to dance," says Giles, "but within weeks I had gone from one class a week to seven, and within months my academic grades dropped from As to Ds."

And so the history degree was history. Giles started teaching at Ceroc, in Shortland St, and took up tango with Argentinian great Graciela Heredia, who was living in Auckland at the time. Before she returned home, Heredia told Giles to get into ballet.

"I had never had much interest in ballet," confesses Giles. "I thought it looked very old-fashioned."

But he heeded his heroine's advice and in 2000 took lessons just across the road from Ceroc, at the Auckland City Dance studios.

"There was no turning back. I couldn't get enough. Ballet is so incredibly specific and expressive. The discipline is amazing and the rituals almost fall into place like replacements for the rituals I was used to in religion."

By now 23, "old for a dancer", Giles has so far survived in London by teaching dance and gym, and doing the best he can with a "hit and miss" income to keep learning.

He's been noticed; Giles has just been offered a student position at the prestigious Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance at Brunel University College in west London. Rambert takes only 35 students a year from around the world and the course lasts for three years.

"Rambert told me they sometimes take on older guys who show potential," says Giles, who adds he went along to the audition "expecting some solemn-faced, austere process reminiscent of Billy Elliot".

"It was relatively relaxed. 'We're not looking for heroes today, dear,' I was told as I was spinning my heart out across the floor, 'we just want to see how well your head moves'."

With the academic year due to start in September, the offer is bitter-sweet. The annual fee is £9000 ($29,000) and Giles is not eligible for any British loans or funding.

"I've been looking through the internet for any kinds of trusts or funds I might be able to apply for. The Aotea Centre said they can sometimes help people and there are things like the AMP Trust. I've assumed I will find the money somehow, so I've told Rambert I'm coming. I'm determined not to let the opportunity go which I feel I've been waiting for all my life."