A group of Niverville dancers has received top honours at this year’s Southeastern Manitoba Festival in Steinbach.
“Our dancers had an absolute blast at SEMF,” say Danielle Auld and Melanie Ducharme, who own and operate the Prairie Soul Dance Company.
The dance portion of the festival took place over two consecutive weekends, March 12–13 and March 19–21, at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School Theatre.
“All of our routines received gold and gold honours,” Auld and Ducharme say, pointing out that two performances received perfect scores of 100. “Two of our routines have been chosen to dance at the Highlights Evening. Grace Ducharme received an Adjudicator’s Choice for her ballet solo, ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ and we received the Open Category highest mark for our contemporary piece, ‘Prairie Madness,’ which brought the audience to tears… the adjudicators commented that our dancers have soul!”
The Highlights Evening, on March 21, served as the grand finale to the dance portion, with performances in all dance categories—ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, creative worship, open, tap, hip-hop, and improvisation.
The annual festival, which began in late February, runs for about three weeks and features opportunities for a wide variety of amateur performers. In addition to performances, the festival includes workshops and competitions adjudicated by experts. The categories include choral, dance, guitar, instrumental, musical theatre, piano, speech arts, string, and vocal.
