Local dancers part of Kennedy Center show

Amazing.

Intriguing.

Surreal.

The adjectives three local dancers used to describe a recent performance in Washington, D.C., were over the top — but then, so was the opportunity the girls had to perform at one of the country’s most iconic venues.

Marlow Schulz, Perrey Sobba and Bridget Unterreiner, all dancers with youth tap ensemble Feat x Feet, were chosen to perform in a tap show at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Dec. 7. JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance, was organized by Lane Alexander, co-founder and director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.

“It was really just surreal,” said Schulz, a junior at Whitefish High School. “It’s still hard for me to believe that I did that. It was an amazing experience.”

The trio were selected after a two-part audition process in late summer and early autumn. Their Feat x Feet instructor, Ashley Wold, took them to a weeklong Chicago Human Rhythm Project festival to study with some of the nation’s top tap instructors.

When the dancers were told about the upcoming Kennedy Center performance, they decided right away to try out, said Schulz, the daughter of Derek and Krista Schulz.

“Naturally me and my friends decided to go for it,” she said. “It was kind of a ‘why not?’ kind of thing.”

They expected to hear whether they’d been chosen by the end of August. When that deadline passed and September had nearly slipped away, the dancers finally heard from Alexander: They had to resubmit a video audition immediately.

“We had six days to do it,” said Sobba, a senior at Whitefish High.

They heard in October that all three of them had been cast as main dancers in the youth performance part of the show. The girls already knew the choreography, but they got to work in earnest refining their pieces.

That work ended in disappointment for Sobba, the daughter of David and Beth Sobba.

“I broke my leg 30 hours before we left,” she said.

The accident happened while Sobba was rehearsing. She was able to laugh about it two weeks later, but at the time, it was a heartbreaking disappointment. Sobba was able to go to Washington and watch professional dancers and choreographers work, but she missed the chance to perform. An understudy took her place.

“I actually went on stage, crutches and all, for the curtain call,” she said. “But I wasn’t able to actually dance. It was tragic.”

Despite her immobility, the experience was priceless, Sobba said.

“I’m very glad I went. Just the whole process was very intriguing, how the whole thing comes together,” she said.

“And I enjoyed speaking with the other dancers. Everyone was very supportive.”

Unterreiner, the daughter of Joe and Colleen Unterreiner, agreed working with professional dancers and choreographers was an incredible opportunity.

“Some of the main parts that really stuck with me is how inspired I was by a lot of the professionals that performed in the show. It was just so amazing,” the Glacier High School senior said.

“Being in the show with them, it was always like, wow, I’m sharing the stage with people of this caliber. It was inspiring because it shows where tap can take you if you really are passionate about it.”

Unterreiner said she hopes to keep dancing once she graduates this spring.

“I might not necessarily pursue it like a primary occupation, but I can’t imagine not dancing,” she said.

Schulz and Sobba said they, too, plan to dance after graduation.

“I do plan to pursue it in some degree in college,” Sobba said.

In the meantime, they’ll continue to look back on their experience dancing at the Kennedy Center.

“Dancing at the Kennedy Center is something I’ll remember forever. I don’t know if an opportunity like that will come up again,” Unterreiner said. “I tried to soak up everything I could. ... It was a really humbling experience.”

Kristi Albertson, editor of This Week in the Flathead, may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.