There are more than 1,700 entries into the 35th annual Prince George Dance Festival with many dancers participating in more than a dozen categories that involve solos, duos and group in areas of dance including ballet, modern, stage, Highland, hip hop and more. The week-long festival takes place at Vanier Hall beginning Saturday.
There's three girls in particular looking forward to the annual spring-break event.
Kyra Sinclair, 14, from Excalibur performing arts studio and Melissa McCracken, 17, from Judy Russell dance studio, will be competing 18 times each while Abbie McCormick, 13, from Dance Your Hart Out , will compete in five categories.
During the festival the girls can be dancing as many as seven times in one day, with solos and duos performed during the day and group dances mostly taking place in the evening.
"It's especially tiring performing the group dances because they happen at the end of the day and sometimes we're dancing at 10 p.m. and we could have started as early as 9 a.m.," explained Melissa. "It's so much fun though. The festivals are always exciting. We get to watch our friends, volunteer back stage and just support the other dancers while they are competing, too."
Melissa is preparing to audition to a variety of dance schools in the hopes of becoming a professional dancer one day. She's got her eye on the the Royal Winnipeg Ballet where she is auditioning for their summer intensive program in the hopes of being invited back to attend school when fall comes around.
Kyra has a few years to go before she has to make those kinds of moves but she also wishes to be a professional dancer before considering teaching as a profession, same as Melissa.
Abbie is enjoying her dancing time and her focus is more on the fun stuff right now, with Highland, acro and hip hop being tops on her list of favourites.
The participants at the festival come from the central interior of the province including Kamloops, Prince Rupert, Terrace, Fort St. John, Quesnel and Prince George.
During the festival there will be more than $20,000 offered in prizes.
The festival will have three adjudicators overseeing the event and 16 dancers will be chosen to advance to the provincial competition held June 5 to 9 in Kamloops.
The Prince George Dance Festival goes from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. each day.
All passes and programs are available at Vanier Hall. This is a cash-only event.
The dance festival gala performance will be held Friday night at Vanier Hall.
