Christine Wishart is this year celebrating 35 years of being a dance teacher.
Throughout her established career, Christine has taught dance in Cootamundra, Young, Temora, Harden, Yass, Griffith, Leeton, Hillston and Goolgowi.
Christine teaches a wide range of dances, including ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop, pilates and acro.
The region’s well-known and well-respected teacher runs a small business, named Chris-tine Wishart’s Dance Studio.
Her dance studio caters for all ages from three and up. Christine Wishart’s Dance Studios currently operate in Cootamundra, Young and Temora.
Her Cootamundra dance studio is behind the old hospital on the corner of Thompson Street and Mackay Street.
“I’ve been teaching in Coota for 20 years and I’ve had my own studio for 15 years,” Christine said.
“In that time, I also taught in Harden for 10 years and Yass for four years.
“Yass was great too, but four years of travelling on Saturday’s was time-consuming.
When I bought Young that had to go to a Saturday as well and Yass had to make way,”
Christine continued. Christine runs classes five days a week and has ladies up in their 50’s attending.
Christine and her students are currently preparing for their upcoming dance concerts coming up on the 12th and 13th of November at the Cootamundra Ex-Services Club.
“We’ve got Eulorea School dancing in our concert this year too because they missed out due to COVID last year, so they’re very excited,” she said.
“We’ve taught online, as we did last year, so nothing has dramatically changed. The kids have been really good.
“We just finished some online exams and the students have got their results back for that and we’ve got our concerts coming up in November.”
Due to COVID restrictions, the concerts will only be able to be attended by the parents and families of dancers.
“We only have two concerts, and we can only have a limited crowd of 100. I opened it up only to the parents and their families because it’s not right if they don’t get to watch their kids,” Christine explained.
“Normally the concerts have been advertised when tickets were available to the public, but unfortunately the evolving COVID-19 situation has made that difficult.
“For the last couple years, I’ve had to limit tickets for each child have two or three people come and watch them.”
Christine does teach the Royal Academy of Dance and Australian Dance Vision (ADV) ballet syllabus at her studios, however, doesn’t do official exams.
The studio does however offer tap exams and Eisteddfod competitive dancing in singles, duos and groups.
Christine Wishart currently has up to 10 dance teachers working in her studios, with some working as student-teachers.
The cost of lessons at the studio starts from $10 a lesson. Christine Wishart’s Dance Studio is an active ‘Creative Kids provider as well, so she does accept those vouchers which a lot of people use.
If you would like to be taught dance at Christine Wishart’s Dance Studio in either Cootamundra, Young or Temora be sure to check out their
Facebook page or call 0427 782 954.
Tim Warren