Mount Gambier’s Amelia Clark recently danced her way to success at the NOW Talent competition in Victor Harbor and returned home with her arms full of awards.

Clark dances with Envy Dance Studio and received three first place gold awards, which were the highlights of her campaign.

She also secured a first place silver award, a second place gold award, a second place silver award and a third place silver award.

To top off her success, she was the second highest scorer overall in the 15 to 17 age category.

Clark said she was surprised when she won the awards and that it was all a bit hard to believe.

“They have two judges and each of them would write down their scores individually and write down little comments,” she said.

The judges two scores were then combined with an average calculated to obtain an overall score.

“They call out the awards from bottom to top and said at this competition they would call out everyone’s names,” Clark said.

“I was waiting for my name and as soon as they got to first I was like ‘are you sure’?”

Clark said the majority of her dances were quite strong and she had put in lots of practice for the competition.

“I have had them for a little while, so I have been perfecting them a bit more,” she said.

Clark’s sister also danced in the competition and her mother Jacinta Clark said they liked the way everybody treated each other backstage.

“It was really nice and fair,” she said.

“There was lots of support backstage, so we really appreciated that from the different studios.”

Clark said she had danced since the age of three and had moved through a couple of different dancing schools.

But the passion started from joy of expressing herself.

“I enjoy dancing because it’s a way to get my emotions out,” she said.

“So if I am having a bad day I can dance the emotion out so I can make myself feel better.”

Clark said she danced in ‘Get the Beat’ and two ‘Follow your Dreams’ competitions earlier this year and competed in NOW Talent in Murray Bridge in November last year.

She has a busy period coming up dancing in the Mount Gambier Eisteddfods tomorrow and Saturday, plus the ‘Take the Stage’ event is also on the horizon while she plans to enter more competitions next year.