Pearl Lorentzen

Lakeside Leader

Slave Lake dancers brought home many medals and awards from a Camrose festival the first weekend in April.

Dance Creations, from Slave Lake, sent soloists, duets, and groups to the festival.

For the first time, some of these dancers competed at a higher level – called ‘competitive.’

Dance Creations’ president Julia Hunt says, “At most competitions, there are performance level dancers and competitive level dancers.

“If a dancer dances over 7.5 – 8 hour per week or more, and/or have more than 60 to 75 minutes of ballet instruction per week, that would put that dancer into a competitive level of dance at competitions. This can get really tough when you are just barely meeting those qualifications because you could be competing against dancers that do 10-20 hours a week. And that’s kind of where we are at. Our dancers are just over those limits, but they accepted the challenge quite well.”

Dance Creations dancers competed in eight performances (solo, duets, and trio) at the competitive level. At this level, they brought home two high golds, five golds, one silver and one first place award.

In the performance level, soloist and duets brought home three high golds, 12 golds, five silvers, two most outstanding awards, one most promising award, and two adjudicators’ awards.

Groups brought home three high golds, eight golds, five most outstanding awards, one most promising, three choreography awards, and two on-stage scholarships.

“Two of our groups were also invited to perform in the showcase!” says Hunt.