The Parkland Dance Festival has been bringing dancers to Yorkton for eleven years, becoming a regional contest where dance schools can show their stuff.
Dancers in ethnic, tap, ballet, hip hop, and group performances all competed at the event. Marinda Van Heerden with the PDF says one of the rewards is to see the variety represented at the contest, since students are doing different styles and different configurations, whether they are doing solos, duets or group performances.
“Some dancers have eight to ten dances they are doing as part of this competition.”
The adjudication for the competition came from Toronto and Edmonton, and Van Heerden says for dancers and teachers it’s a chance to get a perspective on their performance. Adjudicators see things that teachers and students might miss, because they are looking different things.
“It helps you with the standard of your dance. The kids get better every year, because the standard gets higher and higher every year because of the adjudication that we have.”
One of the adjudicators was male, something that Van Heerden was happy to see, because it gave male dancers a chance to hear a new perspective.
“It’s good for the boys to see that there are a lot of males dancing as well... Boys and girls dance differently, so it’s very nice to have men available to do that as well.”
The PDF want to thank the volunteers and dance groups for helping make the dance competition possible in the city.
“I think it’s good for the community to have a big dance competition like this, because we fill up all our hotels, we fill up all our restaurants, and those are our sponsors for the competition. It’s nice to have dancers and our community work together.”
