In the 1930s, Hollywood musicals featured wildly elaborate ‘‘water ballets’’ with ‘‘bathing beauties’’ performing show-stopping routines in huge fantasy pools.
Aquacade, a water ballet performed in Dunedin by the Kiwi Amateur Swimming Club was described by the Otago Daily Times in 1945 as a ‘‘model of symmetry and grace’’ as young women drawn from local swimming clubs entertained crowds at the Municipal Baths.
More recently, Dunedin’s swimming sisters Nina and Lisa Daniels were celebrated when they won bronze for synchronised swimming at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and went on to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Synchronised swimming has been an event at the Olympics since 1984 and was renamed artistic swimming in 2017.
It has been a challenge for Dunedin’s Aquagold Artistic Swimming Club to maintain a presence at Moana Pool.
The club hosted the New Zealand Artistic Swimming National Championships at Moana Pool in 2019, but that did not seem to boost numbers, Ms Esplin said.
The plight of the club was chronicled in The Star in March but the situation had not changed.
To encourage participation the club was running a ‘‘have a go’’ day in the school holidays this Saturday at Moana Pool from 9.30am to 11am.
‘‘It’s a Saturday morning in the hope of getting swimmers to come along and see if they like it,’’ Ms Esplin said.
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