Three dancers from local Maryke Dance Academy recently passed their Comdance Classical Ballet Exams at various levels.

Holly Allison completed her Elementary ballet exam with a result of Honours Plus.

She was also awarded the state’s highest mark out of all candidates in South Australia and travelled to Adelaide to a Comdance presentation day to receive the award.

Bessie Leake also earned the highest mark, Honours Plus, in her intermediate exam while Chelsea Ray was highly commended for her elementary exam despite only having practiced ballet for 18 months.

There are six grades to get to the majors which the girls competed in, and the majors progress from sub-elementary, elementary, intermediate to advanced.

Maryke Dance Academy principal Maxine Lockwood said she was proud of the girls’ hard work and exceptional results.

“The girls are over the moon with their results, especially Chelsea because she was happy to just get a pass, so she was ecstatic to come out with highly commended which is another three levels up,” she said.

“They all have what it takes to do the exam, I would not let them sit for it if they were not ready.

“They need to be strong enough to handle the syllabus we need to do and the three of them were capable of doing that.

“From elementary it usually takes another two years to get to intermediate because the content is quite great and obviously the technique is a lot stronger.

“I hope Holly will do it next year within 12 months, it just depends on how well they retain everything and how hard they work, which she does work hard.

“All the girls work hard which is shown in their results.”