Dane Head

Dane Head performed in the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty in 2020, on secondment from the New Zealand School of Dance. Dane was the 2021 Todd Scholar and was promoted to Artist in 2022. 

Dane was born in Auckland and began dancing at the age of four. He trained at Bays School of Dance for seven years and continued his training at Mt. Eden Ballet Academy for a further four years. At the Alana Haines Awards in 2017, Dane was awarded a two-week full-time scholarship to the Central School of Ballet in London. In 2018, Dane placed third at the New Zealand National Young Performer Awards and was a finalist at the Asian Grand Prix in Hong Kong. At the age of sixteen, Dane began full-time training at the New Zealand School of Dance as a Classical Major. 

In 2021, Dane performed the role of Puck in Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2022, he performed the role of The Fab Five’s Thiery in Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella and danced in Shaun James Kelly’s The Ground Beneath Our Feet, Olivier Wevers’ The Sofa, Sarah Foster-Sproull’s The Autumn Ball and Twyla Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles™. In the digital season Ballet Bites Dane performed Joshua Guillemot-Roderson’s King of the Castle and Shaun James Kelly’s Alba. In 2023, Dane danced the role of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose, the Storm Trio in Alice Topp’s Logos, and as Hansel in Loughlan Prior’s Hansel and Gretel. For the 2024 revival of Russell Kerr’s Swan Lake, Dane performed as the Jester, in the Neapolitan Divertissement, and in the Pas de Trois in Act I.