Barrhead dancers return from Alberta Ballet experience

It was an experience of a lifetime and one that four young dancers from Footworks Dance Academy hope to have again.

In early December, Tasarina Peacock, 15, Mikaela Widdup, Benedict Quedenbaum, 13, and Jamie Kalmbach, 8, were part of Alberta Ballet’s annual holiday production of the Nutcracker at the Northern Jubilee Theatre, in Edmonton.

In our Oct. 18 issue, we detailed how the group got to be part of the cast of the Nutcracker.

The Alberta Ballet is Canada’s second-largest ballet company and is known around the world for its contemporary and classical productions. The 2016-17 season marks its 50th year.

“It was really a neat experience,” Peacock said, adding because the Nutcracker took place over a number of days including multiple performances each day, most of her family decided to stay in Edmonton for the duration of the show and take a mini-holiday.

Not that there was a lot of time for the dancers for anything else, but preparation, like costume fittings and rehearsals took a lot of their time.

The group said the production and their involvement on a daily basis with a professional dance company got off to an auspicious start.

Preparation for the production was scheduled to begin one day before with the amateur dancers joining the professional troop on Dec. 7 for a day of costume fittings and rehearsals, but things didn’t quite go as planned.

“We could only do practices,” Kalmbach said.

“The truck with all the costumes was delayed in Manitoba because of weather or something,” Peacock explained.

The truck eventually arrived and at 9 a.m. the next day the cast was fitted with their official costumes. Peacock and Widdup, as soldiers, Quedenbaum as a paige and Kalmbach as a mouse.

They all agreed the costumes were not very comfortable (Kalmbach said the mouse costume was especially itchy) and didn’t afford a whole lot of visibility, with the exception of Quedenbaum’s costume.

“At least he could see,” the girls said.

Shortly after the costume fitting the cast broke into small groups and rehearsed, followed by yet another full rehearsal, sans costumes, about two and a half hours before the opening curtain.

“I think we were all pretty nervous,” Widdup said, adding the lack of visibility in the costumes probably helped because they weren’t able to see the audience.

“Even if your costume did offer some visibility you couldn’t see beyond the first two or three rows because of the stage lighting,” Quedenbaum added.

However, Peacock said eventually by the end of the run performing, often to a full house, the nervousness subsided to a large degree.

“Every time it gets a little less, to the point where it seems almost normal,” Widdup agreed.

As for what their favourite memory or part of the entire experience was, to a person, the group said it was on the second last day of the run when the entire cast got together for a potluck between shows.

“We got to talk to all the professional dancers and they all signed a cast shirt,” Kalmbach said, adding her mother is making a display for the souvenir.

When asked what is next for the group, everyone but Kalmbach will be going to the Dominican Republic as part of Footworks’ That’s Entertainment show in February and Quedenbaum will be taking part in a three week intensive camp for pre-professionals at the Alberta School of Ballet in Calgary, an offshoot of Alberta Ballet. To qualify for the camp he had to successfully audition, something he did in November, while simultaneously attending the weekly practices for the Nutcracker. He also received a partial scholarship to attend the camp. At the end of the camp, Quedenbaum has a chance to attend a full year program at the school at the Calgary campus.

Widdup and Peacock will also be auditioning for a similar intensive summer camp for female pre-professional dancers and the entire group plans to tryout for the Nutcracker again next year.

“That is if you (Kalmbach) don’t shoot up and grow two feet and become too tall to be a mouse again,” Peacock and Widdup joked.