The late Julie Appleton Seymour, pictured in 2012 with her world champion dancers Holly Kier and Abby-Jane Taylor.
The late Julie Appleton Seymour, pictured in 2012 with her world champion dancers Holly Kier and Abby-Jane Taylor.
Central Hawke’s Bay’s Municipal Theatre in Waipawa will be filled with the swirl of tartans and the skirl of bagpipes this Saturday, as the Highland Dancing Association of Hawke’s Bay hosts the North Island of New Zealand Open Championships 2023.
Dozens of dancers aged from four years to 17 andover will take to the stage to be judged as they dance the Highland Fling, the Seann Triubhas, the Sword Dance and more, in front of three Australian judges: Kim Roe , Barbara McCullough and Felicity Gollan.
Kim Roe is the principal of Tasmania’s largest and one of Australia’s most successful Highland dance schools and this year she marks 55 years of continuous involvement in Highland Dancing, as a dancer, teacher, adjudicator and administrator judging in Australia, the USA, Canada, Scotland and New Zealand.
Barbara McCullough began dancing at age 5 and has been a judge since 1993. She has been the Australian ABHDI representative on the judging panel for the Cowal World Highland Dancing Championships in Dunoon, Scotland, and is currently the vice president of the South Queensland Regional Committee of Highland Dancing.
Felicity Gollan was born into the world of Highland dancing and began to compete at the age of four, competing for 20 years before her retirement. She has held executive positions on the South Queensland Regional Committee of Highland Dancing and the Queensland Scottish Dancing Association, where she was most recently president.
Ahead of the weekend’s event, dancers will be piped in by Hayden Appleton-Seymour, ahead of a programme that includes the JAS Memorial Award, a competition that honours the late Julie Appleton-Seymour, who was at the centre of Highland dancing in Central Hawke’s Bay for most of her life.
After her own success as a competitive Highland dancer, Julie went on to open the Julie Appleton-Seymour School of Dance, sharing her passion for jazz and Highland dancing with generations of dancers.
Julie tutored several international Highland Dancing champions and the Highland Dancing Association of Hawke’s Bay continues to keep her memory alive with the JAS Memorial Award.
