By Sarah Taft
Sydney Henson of the Cleveland Ballet will return to the Orpheum stage this summer to star as Cinderella
On Saturday & Sunday, August 1 & 2, Victoria Rinaldi and the Orpheum Dance Program will present a newly conceived production, Cinderella, at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville. Based on the fairytale by Charles Perrault and featuring music by Jules Massenet, this original production will feature both dance and spoken word and have all the hallmarks one expects: ravishing dancing, comedy, a Fairy Godmother, a glass slipper, and a happy ending!
Audiences since 2019 have come to love the Orpheum Dance Program’s summer production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But this year Victoria wanted to up the ante and create a brand new production for audiences. “I’ve long wanted to create a trio of summer productions that we can present on a rotating basis. We have a lovely magical Shakespeare comedy with Midsummer, and Cinderella will be our classic fairytale. Now I just need to come up with an equally engaging third production and the trio will be complete,” laughs Victoria.
This new production of Cinderella is very different from the Prokofiev ballet: “I find that score to be very dark,” said Victoria. “I wanted something lighter and more joyful for this production.” So, she turned to her past as a professional dancer for inspiration. “In 1985 I was in the Massenet opera Cendrillon with the New York City Opera,” she said, “and it was a beautiful production, with beautiful dancing.” The problem, though, was that there isn’t enough music in the ballet suite to stage a full-length production. “So, I went through Massenet’s music and created the score that we’ll be using,” she said. “Then I went through and wrote out the whole production, from the story to the dance parts to the spoken word roles that help carry the story,” creating a totally new, totally fresh summer production presented only in Tannersville.
“This is going to be a much bigger show than Midsummer,” said Victoria, “with more props, more scenes, and more interaction between the dancers, the actors, and the audience.” Designing a new production like this one presented exciting challenge. “I really had to sit down with the score and ask what I can do to make this a magical, engaging experience for the audience,” said Victoria. “So, I had to work out what kind of stagecraft do I have to use so that it’s not contrived and to make it magical for the audience? How will the pumpkin carriage appear? How can I make Cinderella’s first appearance at the ball as magical as possible?” These are all questions that Victoria has been working through for the past year, and the audience is sure to be enchanted by the results.
Starring as Cinderella is Sydney Henson, one of Victoria’s first students on the Mountain Top, now a professional ballerina with the Cleveland Ballet. Audiences will remember Sydney as the very first Clara in the Orpheum Dance Program’s production of The Nutcracker in 2015; that ballet has grown over the past 11 years to be one of the finest Nutcrackers in upstate New York. Sydney will be joined by another dancer with the Cleveland Ballet, Levian Mondville, as the Prince. Other dance roles will be filled by students in the pre-professional program at Joffrey Ballet School New York, which has been an important partner of the Orpheum Dance Program in past productions.
Spoken word is also an important part of this production, as it is with Midsummer, “but I really wanted the spoken word to be better integrated into this production,” said Victoria. Rebecca Reaney, who audiences may remember as Peter Quince from last year’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will play Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. Favorite local actors from the Maude Adams Theater Hub will step into the roles of the stepmother and stepsisters. Jessica Gibbons will play the stepmother, and Hedda Flynn and Lillian Gracia will play the stepsisters. “Since the dance and spoken word are so much more integrated in this production,” said Victoria, “I really wanted to use local actors so that they’re more accessible for rehearsals. And luckily there’s some really wonderful talent on the Mountain Top.”
The Orpheum Dance Program
The beginnings of the Orpheum Dance Program lay with a production of The Nutcracker in 2015. That first production cast Victoria’s advanced students alongside local children. “The classes originally started after I did my first production of The Nutcracker, which was a thank you to the Catskill Mountain Foundation for the use of their facilities to teach my first students,” said Victoria. “I involved a lot of kids from the community in The Nutcracker, and they were coming to me begging for classes so that they could learn to dance like the professional dancers I was bringing in.” First known as simply the Community Dance Classes, these classes have grown into the Orpheum Dance Program, which teaches ballet, jazz and contemporary dance to local kids starting as young as age 5.
“Teaching these kids has been such a rewarding experience,” said Victoria. “Since I’m teaching at all levels, I’ve had to develop skills that I did not have in my own dance training. I’ve had to learn how to teach kids, to remember what it felt like to learn these moves, to develop an awareness of how kids react to different situations, and how to read a room filled with young children and to switch gears when I see I’m losing them.”
Play is an important part of that process. “I use a lot of fun props and games,” said Victoria. “I’ll put something fun like a stuffed cupcake at various spots in the room, and have the kids run or skip to it. That teaches them how to move through a space in both straight lines and diagonals. I’ll ask them to imagine a puddle in the middle of the room, and ask them to jump over it … they’re essentially learning a grand jeté, without realizing it.”
It’s not all play, though: there’s a lot of hard work involved. “Victoria’s very good with giving clear directions because she wants you to move the correct way. She trains you for perfection,” says Avery Goodwin, who has been a student of the Orpheum Dance Program since it started. While some may be intimidated by the hard work, it’s fun, too. “It’s a wonderful experience,” added Aria Shoffler. “I would encourage other people to do it … it’s a lot of fun.” And the hard work does pay off. “Victoria is strict, definitely,” says Kensi Dempsey. “Kids who don’t really commit often quit, but if you stick with it, it pays off.” That dedication to hard work has certainly paid off for Elvis d’Ambrosia, another long-time student of the program, who recently completed an advanced ballet class in New York with the famed dancer Valentina Kozlova.
For some of these students, a career in dance is something that they’re very interested in pursuing; for others, taking these classes is an important life experience that teaches them lessons that they’ll carry throughout the rest of their lives. “There’s nothing else that these kids can do that will teach them the same lessons that dance will,” said Victoria. “It’s not like sports, where you’re asked to perfect certain moves in an asymmetrical way. In dance, you’re negotiating with your body all the time, taking a sequence of steps that you’ve learned and making split-second decisions about how you’re going to land, all while counting music at the same time.” Avery adds, “my body awareness and how I interact with a space has definitely gotten better.” Kensi’s mother Alisa says that she “literally dances around the house, and twirls from room to room. And her posture is perfect … she also rides horses, and her equestrian instructor said that ballerinas who ride horses are the best.”
These classes also teach skills that are important in other parts of life. Aria has learned the importance of “being on time, staying organized, and staying focused.” Elvis has also learned the importance of being on time: “I don’t really like to be late,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot of discipline from these classes.”
“I feel honored that the Orpheum Dance Program and the performances are a big part of their childhood memories,” said Victoria. “Things will adapt and change, but the one thing I can do is to create a fan base for ballet, and they will carry that for the rest of their lives.”
What’s New for the Orpheum Dance Program
Ongoing renovations at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center will bring new opportunities for the program to grow. “I want to make this program bigger,” said Victoria. “The renovations at the Orpheum are looking really good, and we’re looking forward to their completion—it will be our chance to really up the ante on this program, maybe even develop a multi-week summer intensive program.” For information about the program or to register for classes, visit catskillmtn.org/orpheum-dance-program.
Cinderella in Tannersville, NY: Performance Dates and Ticket Information
Cinderella will be performed at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville, NY on Saturday, August 1 at 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm, and Sunday, August 2 at 2:00 pm. Presented by the Orpheum Dance Program, this original family-friendly production combines dance and spoken word to bring the classic fairy tale to life. The theater is located at 6050 Main Street, Tannersville, NY 12485, and tickets are available through catskillmtn.org.
More to See and Do in the Catskills This Summer
Cinderella is just one of the many reasons to spend a summer weekend on the Mountain Top. The Catskills region offers a rich and varied programme of arts, culture, and family-friendly events throughout the season — and the Catskill Mountain Foundation is at the heart of it all.
If you are making a weekend of it, explore the wider program at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center, where music, theater, and dance events run all summer long. Families who enjoy the magic of Cinderella may also want to return in winter for the Orpheum Dance Program’s acclaimed production of The Nutcracker — widely regarded as one of the finest in upstate New York.
For those interested in nurturing a love of dance in their children, the Orpheum Dance Program offers ballet, jazz, and contemporary classes for local kids from age five upwards. Whatever brings you to the Mountain Top, we hope you’ll stay a little longer and explore everything the Catskills has to offer.