{"id":12653,"date":"2020-01-15T05:02:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T05:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=12653"},"modified":"2020-01-15T05:02:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T05:02:49","slug":"dancers-leap-into-professional-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/15\/dancers-leap-into-professional-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancers Leap Into Professional Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footlight Dance students participated in recent show at Argyros<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By DANA DUGAN\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Dancers from Footlight Dance Centre posed onstage with American Ballet Theatre dancers Isabella Boynton, front center, James Whiteside, left center rear, and Calvin Royal, left center right. Also pictured are Kenton Chen, center front, and Michael Scales, center rear, at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum. Photo credit: Jennifer Simpson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A rare dance performance in early January marked the second collaboration between the Argyros Performing Arts Center and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabela Boylston.<\/p>\n

Born in Sun Valley, Boylston began dancing with Footlight Dance Centre. Over the past several years, she has returned twice to present dance performances at the Sun Valley Pavilion, and last winter at The Argyros. Then, as now, fellow ABT dancers Calvin Royal III and James Whiteside came along. Young dancers from Footlight Dance Centre also danced in the performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Isabella was coming to do another show, she called me and said this is my vision for my next show at The Argyros,\u201d said Hilarie Neely, director of Footlight Dance. \u201cShe asked if we\u2019d like to be a part of it? It was so sweet. That\u2019s the kind of person she is. We were part of the entire production. Her vision was to have kids involved so the audience could see how you start at a young age and keep working, and if that\u2019s what your passion is, you continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it handily revealed the long and often arduous progression from school to professional.<\/p>\n

Because each year advanced Footlight dancers tour schools with what are known as Lecture Demonstrations, they already had a ballet piece ready to go, about migratory birds.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, Isabella was putting together live music, and the dance, for her and her friends, Calvin Royal and James Whiteside, who\u2019re both with ABT, too,\u201d Neely explained.<\/p>\n

The mixed holiday program was accompanied by Michael Scales, a pianist with ABT, and the young singer, Kenton Chen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so beautiful,\u201d Neely said. \u201cHe sang a few pieces, each unique and lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Footlight dancers performed in two pieces; the younger students danced to a holiday piece, \u201cCarol of the Bells,\u201d and the advanced girls danced to the classical \u201cHolberg Suites\u201d prelude by E. Greig, both of which were choreographed by Neely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a beautiful performance, the audience went gaga,\u201d Neely said. \u201cThe variety was perfect. Everything about the four days was so positive and giving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Footlight Dance students participated in recent show at Argyros By DANA DUGAN\u00a0 A rare dance performance in early January marked the second collaboration between the Argyros Performing Arts Center and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabela Boylston. Born in Sun Valley, Boylston began dancing with Footlight Dance Centre. Over the past several years, she has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,4,53],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calendar-2","8":"category-entertainment","9":"category-calendar-feature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}