How a ballet school’s 50-year legacy unravelled

Saturday, 25 July 2026

A beloved Christchurch ballet school closed its doors this month. In the process, the entire board of the charity behind it has resigned, the historical criminal conviction and prison sentence of the trust chair has resurfaced and a new school has rapidly emerged to take over on the same site amid claims of cultural and financial dysfunction. MICHAEL WRIGHT reports.

The ballet equivalent would be Ravel’s Bolero. The notice to students and parents of the Southern Ballet Theatre Trust on June 22 started softly. It took a while to build. It wasn’t until the third paragraph that trust chair James Pomeroy got to the point:

“As many of you may know, Southern Ballet has, as many for-purpose entities have, faced a multitude of challenges over recent years due to internal and external pressures.”

Then came the shuddering climax: “With these pressures unabating it is with great sadness that I advise the Board has resolved to cease operations of the Southern Ballet School.”

The school, a beloved Christchurch entity, 50 years old and responsible for teaching tens of thousands of students, could no longer cope with the financial realities before it. “Declining student numbers, increasing operating costs, and ongoing cashflow pressures have placed the school under significant financial strain. Despite exploring the options available to us, the Board cannot see a viable pathway forward that would allow the school to continue operating sustainably.” The final day of operations was July 19.

Online, former students and parents mourned its passing quickly and profusely. “So sad to hear,” said one, “Such wonderful memories of those original years.”

But the demise of Southern Ballet appears to be more than a straightforward capitulation to market forces. The Press has learned the entire trust board resigned last weekend and the new, privately-run ballet school that started up in the same premises this week, run by the artistic director and very recent former chair of Southern Ballet, did so only after a fraught transition that resulted in the first day of lessons being postponed.

Lorraine Peters, who founded the school in 1975, was awarded a QSM in 1991 for services to ballet and who celebrated her 90th birthday the day the school announced its closure, said the news was “devastating and unexpected”.

“It survived 50 years [of] earthquakes, pandemics and every economic climate… To see it fold in this way now is very disappointing. What has happened?”

‘A fine line’

Southern Ballet was never a great money spinner. Its current charitable iteration started in 2014 and most years it recorded a financial loss. But it had cash in the bank, decades of good will and a can-do ethos. The Press has spoken to numerous former trustees, staff and others connected to the school this week and the overwhelming consensus was that people did what they needed to make it work.

“You had to work hard to make things balance,” one former trustee said. “You need a lot of community support and volunteers and donations… Everything was looked at as ‘What the income was going to be? What was the cost going to be?’ And where we could get leverage like adding in extra school holiday programmes or extra shows to try and increase the income. So it was constantly looked at, and we were aware that it was a fine line.”

After the earthquakes, Southern Ballet found a home on Carlyle St in Sydenham. By 2015, it had a $400,000 insurance payout from quake losses at its previous Arts Centre base and a $200,000 grant from the Christchurch City Council for a deposit to buy a property.

Purchasing Carlyle St didn’t work out, so in 2023 the trust bought the other property it was renting ‒ around the corner on Hawdon St. This depleted the trust’s cash reserves, but offset onerous rental costs. “[It] was 20-odd thousand dollars a year in lease that we weren’t paying,” the former trustee said. “So financially it made sense to use that money.”

Southern Ballet forged on. In 2024 it recorded an $18,000 loss. Not great, but also not terminal for a charity that was accustomed to getting by. Income was steady at just over $800,000.

But at the end of 2024, a well-liked teacher left. As a result, about 20 students also left. These were engaged students who took numerous classes and accounted for several ‘enrolments’ each on the balance sheet.

This, the former trustee believed, started a decline. Enrolment fees were bread and butter revenue. “It was really the loss of numbers…[and] the costs essentially were the same.”

In 2025, extra dance programmes that brought in much-needed cash either didn’t go ahead or had numbers curtailed.

“The loss of numbers [and] some of the students that didn’t get through [to selection for extra-curricular programmes], that was upsetting. So another reason that some people just got a little bit disillusioned.”

More changes followed: Several new trustees arrived after the 2025 AGM; a restructure, resulting in more staff departures; and a switch in syllabus for 2026 from the British Ballet Organisation to the Royal Academy of Dance.

During this time, Tasman Davids became trust chair. Davids, a renowned ballet dancer himself, first joined as a trustee in 2024 after more than a decade dancing in Russia.

“The financial state of the trust in general was cause for concern over multiple years before I joined the board,” Davids said. “The general understanding was that the organisation needed to modernise and looked to the trust to do this.”

Davids said he raised several possibilities with the board ‒ mergers or buyouts with other ballet schools, or selling the Hawdon St property. “Another asset is wonderful…however, that also comes with operating costs of that asset at the same time. [For] an organisation that’s already posting deficits, that’s a really tricky situation.”

Davids resigned as chair in early June ‒ about two weeks before the school closure announcement. “There [were] a lot of legacy issues that had built up in the background,” he said. “Realistic financial questions that needed to be sorted that the trust just wasn’t in a position to do.”

There was one other factor in play. Another trustee, James Pomeroy, who has since taken over as chair and sent the closure announcement email to students and parents, has a historical criminal conviction for blackmail and obtaining sex by deception. Crimes for which he was sentenced to more than two years in jail.

Disclosure

The details of Pomeroy’s offending are at once clear cut and heavily disputed. The conviction itself is beyond doubt. It occurred more than a decade ago and Pomeroy has since changed his name. It was serious enough to warrant a 25-month prison term and a sharp reprimand from the sentencing judge: “Blackmail is an insidious crime, one with a very high penalty. It can have long and strong effects upon the victim.”

In a statement to The Press, Southern Ballet said Pomeroy “Never sought to minimise or excuse his past. He accepted responsibility at the time, complied with the legal process, and has spent the years since working to rebuild his life through positive contributions to his community and professional governance roles.”

The next part is more complicated: “When invited to join the Board of Southern Ballet by the then Chair, he was fully transparent about his history. All board members at the time were made aware and he was voted on to the Board under full transparency.”

Davids said this was not true. “James did disclose to me that he had a criminal history, but told me it was over seven years ago and outside of the mandatory…disclosure period. I did not know what the nature of the offending was. A public search of “James Pomeroy” brought nothing back and at the time he sat on the Institute of Directors and multiple other charities connected to children's welfare, indicating to us that he was an upstanding member of the community.”

A trustee at the time Pomeroy joined the board said they were unaware of the conviction. “I definitely didn't know that…. I thought it was an inquiry and that he was cleared.”

Pomeroy stands by his disclosure. He remains a trustee of Scope and is involved with the Christchurch City Choir, but is no longer with the Institute of Directors. “The [institute] has very high standards for membership,” the organisation said in a statement to The Press.“James Pomeroy is no longer a member.”

Pomeroy is still the chair of Southern Ballet, although The Press has learned most, if not all, current board members resigned in the past week and that at least one did so having learned the details of his conviction. “If [new board members] did not know about historical matters from 2012 that is not because details were intentionally withheld,” Southern Ballet said in its statement.

Pomeroy did not address direct questions about board resignations. Many trustees either declined to comment or did not respond to questions from The Press.

The trust is now winding up.

The Nova Dance Academy

When Southern Ballet announced the school closure on June 22, the letter included an attachment, written by Davids and Southern Ballet artistic director Katie Hurst-Saxton, introducing a new ballet school.

“We are excited to begin the next chapter and share our plans for the future of the Classical Ballet School,” it said. “Tasman and I will be continuing to operate the ballet school from the Carlyle Street studios, ensuring continuity and stability for our students and families. Our goal is to make this transition as seamless as possible, with very few changes to the current timetable, and training pathways.”

The announcement turned some heads in the Southern Ballet community. The company behind the new Nova Dance Academy had been incorporated 18 months earlier and when enrolment information was sent out a few days later it noted that “after months of dedicated preparation, we are delighted to announce that our doors are officially open”.

Davids said the reality was much more improvised. Nova only came about once the school closed and a deal was struck to use Carlyle St. “That was sort of the only way we could see how to do it…at least until a point where we could find somewhere for ourselves…We set that up sort of in 30 seconds flat.”

The company behind it was a dormant entity connected to his day job in finance repurposed to run the new school, he said. The choice of words ‒ “months of dedicated preparation” ‒ were perhaps an innocent exaggeration. “I think it was just purely trying to make sure that the parents felt as if this was a thought-out decision and not just a snap decision.”

Nova, he said, “literally has an asset balance of zero”. “It’s got nothing to do with the trust whatsoever. We’ve paid them a nominal fee to use the studios in the short term…We don't benefit from anything. We have no control over [trust] assets, we’ve got no chattels, we’ve got nothing.

“We’re doing everything purely for the kids, that's it.”

Nova began classes on Tuesday. It intended to start on Monday ‒ the day after Southern Ballet officially closed its doors ‒ but for negotiations over the use of Carlyle St. Southern Ballet is in the middle of a six-year lease with the landlord. The Press understands those negotiations were protracted. Pomeroy did not answer direct questions about the reasons for the delay.

‘The most marvellous spirit’

That just leaves the remnants of Southern Ballet Theatre Trust. The Hawdon St property, which has an RV of $410,000, has been sold in the past month. Unless the trust was carrying catastrophic debt ‒ it has not released its annual report for 2025 ‒ it should be well clear of insolvency. Did Southern Ballet need to close?

“Why [would] the asset be sold after the school had closed?” another former trustee, not from the most recent board, said. “I just don’t understand the logic behind that.”

Pomeroy said the decision to sell Hawdon St was well advanced before he took over. The decision to close the school happened the same day he was made chair, he said, and the board had been “heavily weighing” its future for some time. A financial review last year had identified chronic problems. “These issues, together with declining enrolments, increasing operating costs and sustained operating losses, contributed to the Trust’s deteriorating financial position.”

“The decision to close the school was reached by the Board after careful consideration of its legal responsibilities as trustees.

“While the Trust had sufficient funds to continue operating in the short-term, doing so would have significantly depleted its remaining resources without any realistic prospect of returning the school to financial sustainability. The Board concluded that an orderly closure was the most responsible course of action.”

Lorraine Peters often hears from well-wishers. Former students, parents, and staff calling to tell her of the lasting impact Southern Ballet had on their lives. Many dancers who went through the school went on to great things. The co-patron of the trust, along with Peters, is renowned ballerina Fiona Tonkin, who spent more than 30 years as a dancer and then principal coach of the Australian Ballet. In the past week, her phone has rung off the hook. News of the end of Southern Ballet spread quickly.

“It has facilitated so many dancers,” Peters said.

“There was always just the most marvellous spirit amongst everyone and to think that has finished so suddenly is extremely sad.”