SuppliedWhat: Shumka Ukrainian Dancers presents Clara’s Dream
When: December 29 (7:30pm); December 30 (2pm & 7:30pm)
Where: Jubilee Auditorium
Tickets: $15-80 (Ticketmaster)
Dancers and U of A students, Alynna Lirette and Katrusia Pohoreski did not celebrate the end of fall classes with a pitcher of beer at RATT. Rather, the two dancers, and hopeful doctors, found themselves studying for med school finals while also preparing for their roles in Clara’s Dream, a Ukrainian folk ballet based on Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
Both Lirette and Pohoreski are long-time members of the Shumka Ukrainian Dance Centre, and are currently studying in the U of A’s Department of Medicine. As part of their December whirlwind routine, they find themselves either studying, or rehearsing every night of the week in preparation for the Clara’s Dream performances at the Jubilee Auditorium on December 29 and 30.
If it sounds like a major juggling act, accommodating both med school and ballet into their life schedules, you wouldn’t be wrong. But as Lirette suggests, with passion, balance can be found.
“This is my passion, this is what I love to do and when you remember those things, either in school or in the studio, it makes things a lot easier,” she says. “You’re able to find that balance between the two.”
Pohoreski feels her success results in virtue of her involvement in both med school and folk ballet.
“I think academics and Shumka play hand in hand in each other,” she says. “Since I’ve been involved with dance and academics, I’m way more responsible of a person, I have a lot more discipline.”
Lirette was quick to mention that aside from learning how to metaphorically and literally find balance in life, dancing is also fun, and the young ladies laughed.
The dancer’s December schedule is more than academic studies and preparation for Clara’s Dream however. Lirette and Pohoreski were also committed to performing at the Snowflake Gala, which was in support of the Stollery Children’s Hospital.
“We were performing at the Snowflake Gala and I turned to Alynna and I’m like ‘Do you feel a little crazy right now?’ We just finished school at five, we’re driving over to the show, we’re doing our makeup as soon as we get there, we didn’t grab supper, we grabbed Booster Juice. It’s crazy. … (but) I don’t think we’d have it any other way. It fuels us,” says Pohoreski.
The young ladies have multiple roles to play both in life and within Clara’s Dream. Katrusia will play a snowflake, a mouse, and a child while Lirette will also play a snowflake and an adult. Though some are only minor roles, both are cast in the show’s larger dance numbers.
“You’ve got to have many hats,” says Pohoreski of the ability to play multiple characters. “I look pretty young and play one of the children actually, so I get to run around stage being crazy. But I do dance as well, so not to worry.”
Lirette and Pohoreski both say they have a lot of support from their families to successfully prepare for finals and Clara’s Dream. Pohoreski says her mom helps with meal prep and understands when Pohoreski has to “disappear into the basement” to study. Lirette says her father knows all the styles of ballet and has had to deliver forgotten ballet slippers to the studio.
Both of the dancers say they’re putting in 110 per cent at Shumka for Clara’s Dream before med school demands more of their time in the New Year.
“I’m just trying to give it all I have right now,” Pohoreski says. “Maybe in past years, you were on stage really thinking through the choreography,” continues Lirette. “Now, it’s in my body, it’s in my blood, and I can just really give it my heart and soul.”
