At Jan Pianta School of Dance (JPSD), teachers and fellow students call the three McInnes dancers the ‘CEOs’ – that is Charli being the eldest at 12 years, Ella in the middle at 10 years, and Olivia the youngest at eight.
These three talented, dedicated and passionate theatrical dancers can be seen backstage in costume at The Round Performing Arts Theatre in Nunawading during one of the six State Youth Ballet’s Company’s (SYBC) production of The Magic Toy Shop.
Back in June of this year, auditions were held in Melbourne and all three McInnes dancers auditioned in their various age groups. After the first audition, the dancers waited eagerly for a call back to attend another audition with all three McInnes dancers receiving that exciting callback news.
Further excitement was at a peak when all three McInnes dancers received another announcement of being selected for the show.
Charli was cast into the role of a ‘Rag Doll’ and a ‘Can Can dancer’, with both Ella and Olivia cast into the roles of a ‘Fairy’ and ‘Soldier’ dancer.
Since June, the ‘CEOs’ have travelled to Melbourne every Sunday to rehearse for the one-hour show which ran from Tuesday, September 30 to Wednesday, October 1.
The travel and rehearsal times each week have been a huge commitment on behalf of not only the dancers, but their parents as well, but one their parents were extremely happy to provide.
Jan Pianta School of Dance is renowned for producing beautiful technically trained mature dancers, so much so that the artist directors at SYBC requested that Charli perform with the 19-year-old dancers in all six shows.
Ella and Olivia performed in three shows each with all three dancers staying loyal to their local dance commitments at JPSD by preparing for and taking up to six dance exams each, as well as learning a variety of new competition solos required for La Trobe Valley Eisteddfod that was held during the recent school holidays, but the CEOs wouldn’t have missed the experiences for the world.
“Within the last seven productions of SYBC, there has been at least one JPSD dancer participating, a humbly yet proud achievement indeed,” Jan Pianta said.
