Dance mums Kylie Hayes and Heather Evans and Rasa School of Dance principal Lisa Wilkinson enlisted the help of Rialto Cinemas and Barbie yesterday, to help raise funds for their trip to the Hip Hop Unite World Championships in Portugal this October.
Ruby Martin and Jeila Morrison, both 12, qualified to represent New Zealand after winning a national dance competition in Wellington last month.
Since then, the pressure has been put on to raise the $35,000 needed to get to Portugal.
So with the help of their parents, Ruby and Jeila organised a sold-out screening of Barbie at Rialto, with all the funds raised going to help them on their journey.
Ms Wilkinson said she was initially not keen on Barbie and wanted to screen a dance movie like Step Up 2 or You Got Served.
"At first I was very sceptical because I didn’t have a Barbie as a child and I thought that Barbie wasn’t very feminist.
"But then I looked up the trailer and I thought this is actually pretty incredible, and man it is so popular, we just sold the whole theatre out."
She said the girls had practised three to four hours a week to get to the world stage, beating 23 other duos from across the country to win selection.
"We were shocked but we were like ‘wow’, and then they got first and selected for worlds."
The girls were working hard on their dance routine to get it to a world standard and their support team made up of mothers and their Rasa family were fundraising to support their dreams, Ms Wilkinson said.
Fundraising will continue through competitions on the school’s Instagram page and a quiz night is also planned.
