Any concert that begins with a seven year old, Gracelyn Mailey, singing a tuneful O Canada for the crowd is off to a good start. The performing arts show in Winegarden Waterfront Park in Gibsons last Sunday was a singing, dancing feature of Sea Cavalcade, and it generated a fun community feel during the final hours of the festival.
Maureen McBeath hosted the two-hour showcase that Sandra Cordero organized. Cordero is also a dance teacher whose group learned their moves at the Sechelt Seniors Activity Centre to perform a cha cha and a Broadway number.
Another group that was obviously having a good time was the Harmony Hall Line Dancers, eight women with slick steps led by Marilyn Ranniger. You don’t have to be athletic, said a few of the cowboy-booted women – you just have to have fun. You don’t have to be young either, they pointed out, as their group spans four decades and one of their group finally quit just this year – at age 92. The group meets at Harmony Hall in Gibsons on Fridays.
Though the entertainment was mostly amateur, a professional touch came from Ivana and the Cardio Cabaret women, all over the age of 40, who had begun their dance as a fitness exercise and have now upped their technique to competition standards.
The showcase was a mixture of young and old, but it was the kids who really shone and this type of mostly amateur show gives a chance for budding performers to have an audience.
The trio of Geue brothers opened the show with young Caleb playing a boogie number on the piano, followed by Ethan playing the Mission Impossible theme and 15-year-old Brison with one of his own compositions.
Danceworks Academy fielded several young and promising dancers in both hip hop and Bollywood numbers. Two young singers, Florence and Andrea, who are not sisters though they look alike, showed how well they can harmonize together. Emily Picard, the winner of Nikki Weber’s talent competition on July 1, played two classical pieces that contrasted – a lyrical one from Bach and a dark, stormy one from Rachmaninoff. This talented pianist also plays flute and baritone sax with the Chatelech band.
Jasmine Fitzsimons, also a talent show winner, played the fiddle, while Chelsea Rubin, 14, who sings with a local choir and plays in the school band, showed that she was not afraid to tackle some tough songs, including Hallelujah.
The tantalizing aroma of pulled pork dinner provided for free by Christ the King Church as their gift to the community pulled some people away from the closing acts of the show. Okay, so one of those people was me. But that was a good time to catch the street action – Half Cut and the Slackers, a local band, were setting up to play for the diners.
