Prairie Soul Dance Studio recently participated in the Southeastern Manitoba Festival (SEMF), a month-long arts festival held in Steinbach.
According to its website, the festival offers amateur musicians, dancers, and speech performers from across the region the opportunity to perform, attend workshops, compete for awards, and be adjudicated by experts. This year, the Niverville dance studio sent all of their competitive program students to participate alongside other rural schools and organizations.
“It is an excellent learning opportunity in a positive and encouraging environment,” says Prairie Soul’s artistic directors/owners, Melanie and Danielle. “[It] increases confidence.”
The dance portion of SEMF is held over two weekends in March, and sees participants compete for trophies, as well as $100 dance scholarships. During the festival, students perform their piece and receive a verbal adjudication and mark, and then on the last Sunday, select dancers are asked to perform again at the Dance Highlights evening.
“Our dancers performed ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, modern, lyrical, hip hop, stage dance, creative movement, and open,” explains Melanie and Danielle. “We had 49 pieces entered ranging from solos, duos, and group dances. We have a large number of students involved in our competitive program ranging in age from five to early 20s.”
On March 29, the last day of the festival, a few Prairie Soul dancers participated alongside the other trophy winners from the different disciplines in the Southeastern Stars Gala, a final showcase featuring the best from the festival.
