Upon achieving over 90% for all her dances at the South African Championships of Performing Arts, starlet Phillipa Gatonby is all set to wow judges as part of the SA Team in LA next year.
The Chelsea Prep learner danced her heart out, performing in two solos, duets and group dances, scooping two silver medals at the national championships recently. According to Phillpa’s mother, Sally Gatonby, the 13-year-old originally started dancing at the age of seven, finding her passion within the hip-hop genre and adoring it immensely. “However, we moved to Sri Lanka when she was eight, so dancing was put on the back burner for a year and a half. She instead got involved in all the school plays. On returning to Durban, a friend introduced her to Emma Tomlinson at Emotion Studio and the acrobatic dance bug bit. She has been doing acro for the past three years,” she said. Gotonby added that Phillpa has always been a natural performer since birth and that her strength lies in her “sass” on stage. “The minute she steps on stage the performer takes over. Her style is on the theatrical side of dance and she is now exploring dance forms of musical theatre. She is over the moon at her achievement, it came as a huge surprise to make the SA team in all three of her categories, solo, duet and group. She also enjoys dancing to songs with a lot of spunk. Phillipa has a strong character so she knows what she wants and goes for it,” said Gatonby.
