A Cuban Dancer Wins Gold Medal in International Ballet Competition

Cuban dancer Oscar Valdes Carmenates won the Gold Medal in the Senior Category at the Second Cape Town International Ballet Competition (CTIBC) in South Africa. A member of the Ballet de Camagüey, Valdes Carmenates brilliantly performed the Don Quijote male variation in the final round.

Victor Estevez from the National Ballet School of Cuba was second in the contemporary section, junior category, but only a gold medal was awarded in this case.

In the senior section the gold went for Oscar Carmenates from Cuba (19); Hyo-Seon Park from the Republic of Korea (20) won the silver medal; Aaron Smythe from Australia (19) bronze medal, and Thoriso Magongwa from SA (27) won the contemporary section.

In the junior section, the winner was Nathan Chaney from the USA (18); Alys Shee from Canada (16) silver medal; Jeon Yeo Jin from the Republic of Korea (16), bronze medal, and Nathan Chaney (USA) won the contemporary prize.

The special jury prize was awarded to host Andile Ndlovu (22) in acknowledgement of his excellent artistic delivery in both the classical and contemporary genres.

The competition began on July 13 with three days of intense elimination rounds, culminating in Saturday night's grand affair with entrants from South Africa, Cuba, Italy, Canada, the Republic of South Korea and Australia.

In his closing address, competition director Dirk Badenhorst expressed his gratitude to the Cuban delegation, made up of five dancers, one teacher and a jury member, for the example that the island's arts teaching system represents to the development of ballet in South Africa, which in his words, should be taken as a model to the world.