NOT ONE TO BOAST
WHEN Garry Trinder took on the job as director of the New Zealand School of Dance (NZSD) 20 years ago, one of the first things he did was write to the Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland. Having always regarded that international competition as the pinnacle of standards, he knew that to be endorsed as one of the participating schools “smacked of a certain eminence”. He laughs. “I received a lovely letter back from the president saying thank you for your letter but we don’t know anything about you.”
“I’ve kept that letter,” he says today. “So when we got the recognition to become a partner school of the Prix de Lausanne in 2006, for me it meant we were making progress, we were standing alongside our peers.”
Trinder isn’t one to boast. He is usually a self-effacing man who tends to deflect compliments and praise. It
