From the strip club to the stage

A member of the Royal New Zealand Ballet helped pay for her training by dancing at a Wellington stripclub.

Ingrid Gow joined the ballet in 2007 after graduating from the New Zealand School of Dance the year before.

Ballet spokeswoman Katherine Hoby said Gow did not wish to comment on her time at the Mermaid Bar, which is next to the ballet's headquarters. She "was not hiding from it", but had chosen not to discuss it.

Sydney-born Gow trained at the Academy Ballet in Australia between the ages of 4 and 16, when she enrolled at the New Zealand School of Dance.

Gow spent three years at the school, which charges annual fees and levies of more than $5000. School spokeswoman Rebecca Galloway said Gow was "having a great career, she's a good dancer" but would not comment on what students did in their own time.

When the Mermaid opened in 2001, then-ballet general manager Sue Paterson told a Wellington newspaper she was not fazed: "Throughout the world, there are red-light districts always in the theatre districts - the East End in London, Times Square in New York."

The club has a runway with poles along it where dancers strut their stuff. It also has a large water tank where naked women swim seductively.

She said girls "can easily earn up to $1000" on a Friday night.

New Zealand Union of Students' Associations co-president Sophia Blair said many students had to take on jobs to get by.

Dancing with the Stars co-host and professional dancer Candy Lane had not heard of any dancers who had to work in stripclubs but did not judge what some people had to do to survive.