Feat x Feet put on annual dance show
<p>Marlow Schulz, a senior at Whitefish High School, helped create Feat x Feet's "Dancing Through the Decades" show along with Ashley Smith, the youth tap ensemble's director.</p>
<p>Glacier High School junior Maddi Paulson, pictured, and Marlow Schulz are Feat x Feet's co-captains.</p>
Feat x Feet, Montana’s only youth tap ensemble, opens its annual winter tap show this weekend in Whitefish.
Shows are Saturday and Sunday, and Jan. 10-12 at the O’Shaughnessy Center. This is the 16th annual show for this youth tap ensemble under the direction of Ashley Smith.
Also performing will be students from the Feat x Feet tap school, which has locations in Whitefish and Kalispell. Tap school kids range in age from 4 to 18, and the company features students ages 12 to 18, all of whom are taught by Smith.
This show will also feature performances by two Feat x Feet alumni, Bridget Unterreiner and Perrey Sobba.
The show is entitled “Dancing Through the Decades” and is an original creation by Smith with assistance from senior ensemble member Marlow Schulz, a senior at Whitefish High School.
The show starts with dances set in the 1930s and moves through each decade to present time.
Everyone in the audience will find a song or a dance they remember or can relate to, Smith promises. There is a tribute to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, as well as a piece choreographed to “Singin’ in the Rain,” a “Grease” medley, ’80s music, percussion pieces from the ’90s, a drum and tap piece from the first years of the 21st century and popular music from the current decade.
Schulz will open the show with a solo choreographed by tap professional Jason Janas at Tap Kids in Burlington, Vt. She has won a full scholarship as a freshman to the program.
Schulz will close the show with a solo choreographed by tap professional Aaron Tolson, one of the visiting teachers who Smith brought in last June to work with the ensemble.
Schulz and Glacier High School junior Maddi Paulson are the youth tap ensemble’s co-captains. The ensemble also includes Emma Sauve, a student at Flathead High School; Kalispell Middle School seventh-grader Gabbi Paulson; and Lauren Schulz, a student at Whitefish Middle School.
Junior members include Sophie Binstein, a freshman at Glacier; Emma Binstein, a Whitefish Middle School eighth-grader; Jayde Nail, a freshman at Flathead High; Ethan Potthoff, a freshman at Whitefish High; and Whitefish Middle School sixth-grader Olivia Potthoff.
Apprentice members include Aren Alexander, a seventh-grader at Kalispell Middle School; Bradlee Anderson and Claire Carloss, both sixth-graders at Whitefish Middle School; and Whitefish Middle School seventh-graders Emily Buckmaster and Keegan Wold.
Saturday’s show starts at 8 p.m., with all seats reserved at $18 a ticket. Saturday night is also student night; all middle school, high school and college students with student ID will get in for just $8.
Other performance times and prices are as follows:
• Sunday, Jan. 5 — 4 p.m.; all seats $15
• Friday, Jan. 10 — 7:30 p.m.; all seats $18
• Saturday, Jan. 11 — 8 p.m.; all seats $18
• Sunday, Jan. 12 — 4 p.m.; all seats $15
To purchase tickets, call the Feat x Feet hotline at 471-4400.