HUMBOLDT — Seventeen schools and just over 500 student dancers will be competing in the OnStage Dance Festival in Humboldt, showcasing jazz, tap, ballet, hip hop, modern and contemporary, acrobatic dance and more.
Started in 1995, Cori Norman, the festival’s founder, said it began as a way to bring provincial dancing to the Humboldt community.
“Due to the pandemic we had to cancel the last two events so what we did is we decided we would carry through and the 25th anniversary will be celebrated this year,” Norman said.
“Not only are you going to get some incredible entertainment from throughout the area we have 17 schools— just over 500 dancers participating. That is taken care of by 40 instructors and choreographed.”
The competition will take place at the Humboldt Uniplex Jubilee Hall from Friday, April 8 to Sunday, April 10.
On Friday it starts at 10 a.m. until about 9 p.m. On Saturday, it will begin at 8 a.m. until about 9:30 p.m.
On Sunday, it will start at 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., at which point the golden ticket finalist battle will take place. During the finales, five schools will compete to take home a first place of $1,000 for 13 and over, as well as $500 for 12 and under.
The three adjudicators this year are Courtney Odelein, Marcel Tremel and Turner Norman, all former students of Jacquie Huck of Jacquie’s Dance Academy in Humboldt.
Norman called each of them “a shining example” of what can be accomplished in the pursuit of their studies.
“For 12 years they studied dance each and have gone on and travelled all over Canada, the United States, and other countries, and are coming home and are adjudicating,” Norman said.
“Some are in medical health fields, some own their own studies, some are instructors— and all of them continue to study dance. There’s so many opportunities for dance and the community supporting these young children and finding that their dreams can become realistic careers is really important.”
Norman said most of the performers study about 45 minutes to an hour of theory and classwork per week per genre.
“If they take contemporary dance, ballet, hip-hop, that’s four hours of work just studying dance at the studio and that doesn’t include class time.”
