Dancer taps her way up the dancing ladder
Teams from 30 countries were at the championship and Milezaan danced in solo, duo, trio and small groups
AN 11-year-old dancer from Kempton Park made her mark as part of the SA tap dance team at the International Dance Organisation’s world tap dance championships in Riesa, Germany in December.
Milezaan Lategan, a Grade 6 learner at Aston Manor Primary School, competed in four competitions. Although she did not finish in the top three, this young champion is ready to take on the world again.
The world championships is as close as you can get to the Olympics of dance. The International Dance Organisation (IDO) is a world dance and dance sport federation with a membership of over 90 nations, representing more than 250 000 dancers from six continents.
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This prestigious world championship offers an exciting parade of nations, a podium presentation of the world champions and a medal ceremony complete with a national anthem and raising of the national flags of the top three medallists.
Teams from 30 countries were at the championship and Milezaan danced in solo, duo, trio and small groups.
She was fifth in the world for her tap solo called Hanging Tree. With her partner in the duet, Madison Versfeld, she was seventh with Hey Boy, Hey Girl.
In the trio category with partners Madison and Keira Laubscher, she was again fifth. In the small group section Milezaan, her little sister Kianka, Madison, Keira and Samantha Crocker danced their way to the 12th position.
Milezaan has been dancing since she was five years old. She does tap, jazz, modern and lyrical dancing.
Dancing takes up a lot of her time and is definitely one of and perhaps her favourite hobby. She dances constantly, even in the classroom to such an extent that her teachers will just say, stop tapping. However, they know by now that she always moves her feet.
Milezaan loves being onstage and therefore also takes drama lessons, which is one of her other passions in life.
This young dancer went to Portugal in 2014 and competed in the dance world cup.
She really wanted to be in the 2015 finals, worked very hard and succeeded scooping the 10th place in the world at the world tap dance championships.
Going to Germany she had to give up lots of free time with friends and had to miss parties. Milezaan also did some fundraising through the year in order to be able to join the team for this prestigious event. Some days it was really blood, sweat and tears but she kept pushing herself.
And what are her future plans? “When I dance I feel alive and when I hear an applause I start to dance. I want to go to other countries and inspire young dancers to keep on trying to reach their dream. I want to tell all the dancers out there reading this, if people pull you down, because they will, you just have to push yourself back up and you might just be surprised at some of the faces you see.”
