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He can dance:
Innisfail dancer Caleb Bartolo, 16, has wons the hearts of Australians through his riveting performances on the television show So You Think You Can Dance. |
From the pages of the Bartolo family album, the earliest photo shows a smiling Caleb with his first dancing trophy at the age of just five. "It was a solo to Candy Man in a tiny tots section, I still remember doing it and how there were a lot of wriggles in there," a laughing Caleb recalled this week.
The surprise star of Australia's inaugural So You Think You Can Dance series has had plenty of time to fine-tune those "wriggles" since, devoting hour upon hour to dance lessons, eisteddfods and solo workouts.
As an 11-year-old with a passion to dance above and beyond his classes, he took to a little-used room above Ingham's main street.
"It had the wooden floor we needed (so) we'd roll up the carpet, pack up all the chairs and he'd dance," mother Lyn Bartolo told The Weekend Post.
"He's been at it six days a week, a couple of hours every day, since he was little."
Just how closely Caleb Bartolo's story parallels that of Billy Elliot, the young son of a miner who sets the stage on fire in Hollywood blockbuster Billy Elliot, is another surprise. Caleb's father also works in the mines, and Caleb also grew up with a passion for dance that could only be traced back to his grandmother who "loved dancing and had a lot of rhythm".
"He'd sit at the piano with me while I'd sing, then at five he said he wanted to learn dancing," Mrs Bartolo said. "I said I didn't know, that (as a boy) he'd cop a lot of criticism but we did it of course and he's never looked back. Neither have we.
"We both knew he had talent from the time he was very young and we're just so proud because he's worked so hard for this."
Caleb was too young, at 15, to contest So You Think You Can Dance. But he auditioned in Cairns anyway and judges were so impressed they invited him to Brisbane to perform in their series premiere, resulting in rave reviews from across the nation.
The Innisfail teenager's appearance in the show's finale earned him a $10,000 Optus New Talent prize for an intensive two-week course at the Sydney Dance Company in June.
He has also been offered a full-time scholarship to So You Think You Can Dance judge Jason Coleman's new Ministry of Dance school in Melbourne. "It just feels so surreal," the grinning Good Counsel College student said this week, on his return to Innisfail. "There I was mingling with celebrities (at the VIP party after the show) and getting stopped in the streets in Sydney by people wanting photos. "
You have to ask yourself: "Is this really happening? Can somebody punch me so I know if it's real?"
Past dance teachers are among those who don't need to be pinched or punched. Ingham's Joanne Ross remembers Caleb's first dance contests in tiny tots and describes his dancing talents as a "God-given gift". Innisfail's Louise Buljubasich says you can pick a talent like Caleb from the moment a student walks through the door.
"They've either got that quality or they haven't," she said. "You just have to tap into it and bring out the best in them."
Caleb's achievements to date have also included placing fourth in Las Vegas' Rainbow Connection World Dance Championships last year, being named pre-teen champion at the Showcase National Dance Championships on the Gold Coast and cleaning up at eisteddfods from Cairns to Brisbane.
But he said his So You Think You Can Dance exposure had been "life-changing" in comparison. "It's been one of the best experiences of my life, and working with choreographers at somewhere like Jason Coleman's dance academy will be a lot more hard work … but the best thing for me."
Reference: <http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/05/03/3580_local-news.html> Downloaded 11 May 2012
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