When local student Autumn Alexander saw a chance to combine her love of dance with her artistic enjoyment of drawing designs as she entered a national contest to design her own body suit for dancers to wear.
When local student Autumn Alexander saw a chance to combine her love of dance with her artistic enjoyment of drawing designs as she entered a national contest to design her own body suit for dancers to wear.
Her efforts bore fruit when she was informed that out of hundreds of entries, hers was chosen as one of the top five best designs, and was put on-line for people to vote on. In the end, she and a girl from B.C. were chosen as the co-winners of the national vote, and Autumn and her family have just returned from Toronto where she was awarded her prize.
At 14 years of age, the daughter of Mark and Melanie Alexander has been a dancer since she was three, and she has always made drawings of designs of dance costumes - but this was the first time she has shown one of her designs outside of the family, and now her body suit design will be part of an international catalogue, featuring her picture and biography.
In addition to flying her family to Toronto, Autumn was provided with $250 of dance wear, a $250 scholarship for dance, accommodation, $300 for meals while in Toronto, and the company provided her with a body suit made from her design in Brazil. She will receive 16 more body suits that she can give to her dancer friends and family.
"I really like Toronto, it was a great experience," Autumn said of her trip, which included attending the Pure Dance Convention, where she and her sisters took part in a dance workshop put on by professional dancers from the TV show, The Next Step.
"They choreographed a dance that we took part in, to give us more experience as dancers. They were really good, even better than on TV," said Autumn.
For the Alexander family, this was their first time in Toronto, so they did some extra sight-seeing while there, including visiting the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and the Riley Aquarium, along with attending the dance workshop.
With the success of her design in winning this contest, Autumn said, "It kind of makes me want to keep designing dance clothes. I've always wanted to do that."
Autumn's prime love is of dance, and she takes part in ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, musical theatre, contemporary, and acro (a dance form of gymnasistics).
"I like ballet and pointe; ballet supports everything else. I love lyrical and contemporary dance for how I can express myself, and acro, because it makes me more flexible. I love challenging dances," said Autumn.
For her future, she would like to continue designing dancewear, but also dreams of opening her own dance studio, either with her sisters, or on her own. She also expressed a desire to play and teach music.
