Christmas’ True Meaning
Bender Dances through Happy Holidays, With Love
Families often present a perfect façade on their holiday cards, but their lives are often more complicated than a single picture. This theme is explored through the tinsel family in Bender Performing Arts show “Happy Holidays with Love” Sunday, December 14 and Sunday, December 15 at the Madison Center for the Arts.
Bender will also present a show for Title I schools on Friday, December 13. Dancers will perform the shows first act and then do a Q&A with students.
This holiday ballet is returning for the third time. Bender has a rotating schedule of four holiday shows, written by the companies artistic Director Shayna Petruccelli.
In “Happy Holidays with Love” the Tinsels- a mother, father and three daughters- explore the families journeys through their takes on holiday stories such as “The Nutcracker”, “The Grinch”, “Miracle on 34th St.”, “Elf” and “A Christmas Carol”.
“We’ve rewritten those stories to best serve the characters in our family. So, for instance, in a Christmas Carol, that’s the dad’s story.” Petruccelli said.
“She becomes a pseudo-Scrooge character guided by the three ghosts- the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future to rediscover his family. In the show, the dad is a workaholic. His story is a play on Scrooge, while the mother is based on “Miracle on 34th St.”. By taking her daughter to see the mall Santa, the mother is reminded of what is missing in her life. She and her daughter do a dance talking to Santa wishing, wishing for all those intangible things, like familial love. That’s really what she wants for Christmas.” Petruccelli said.
Once the family member space their own obstacles, they become closer. “We take them on a journey with a little bit of holiday magic that shows each one of them what’s really important” Petruccelli said.
The leading roles are played by Company dancers, primarily high school seniors. They have a chance to showcase not only their dance, but they’re acting skills.
“A lot of our dancers have had experiencing doing full musicals, and really fully acting, using their voices, using everything. So, when they get to be lead roles, even though in a ballet, the leads don’t ever actually speak, they’re really adept at storytelling and embodying their characters. “Petruccelli said.
The show highlights are more modern style of Ballet. “Our dancers are so adept, not only a ballet, but also at jazz, hip-hop and contemporary, and so many things that we can pull on those strengths to make a unique, interesting, entertaining show… it’s still all Ballet, but it’s definitely not traditional, classical ballet. I’ve always been drawn to contemporary ballet. I think it’s just so beautiful or artistic, and you never know what’s going to happen in it. So that’s something that I really love, that we are able to get to touch on in our show.” Petruccelli said.
The show features recognizable Christmas tunes. The audience Is invited to sing-along. Petruccelli said the school and Company are about much more than educating dancers. “We want them to be able to be successful dancers, if they so choose in their futures.” she said. “But so much of what we do is designed to educate the person to be a responsible, dedicated, confident adult, to take these kids and help them succeed in their future lives whether it’s in dance or something else.”
Many alumni work as faculty at Bender. “I think because the culture at Bender is so strong, we raise really great people who we want to have continue in the organization.” Petruccelli said. “So, most of our teachers are alumni of the studio. It works really well because they know what we focus on, what our values are, and they uphold those values in the classroom.”