Off The ‘Shelf’ Dance Theatre Northwest Returns To Stage ‘The Toy Shelf’

Thu., Dec. 7, 2000

By Susan English susane@spokesman.com

More than 50 young dancers will perform in Dance Theatre Northwest’s sixth annual staging of “The Toy Shelf” in two performances Sunday at The Met.

The Christmas ballet is the original story and choreography of Janet Wilder, the company’s artistic director.

Wilder incorporated parts of a number of traditional stories and fairy tales and created a compilation of music to accompany the dance.

“There are three pigs in a house, Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel, Peter and a wolf, Cinderella, and Little Bo Peep who appears with three bears,” Wilder says.

The dancers are local students, and each year Wilder tweaks the choreography to best showcase the dancers in that production.

“There are part changes, depending on the dancers,” she says. “For example, Cinderella is back this year after a one-year hiatus.”

In addition to dancing, the story line of “The Toy Shelf” will be told by a narrator on stage. The performances will also be signed for the hearing impaired. The two-hour production includes one intermission.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE `The Toy Shelf’

Dance Theatre Northwest, Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. at The Met. Tickets are $12/adults, $6/seniors and students, free/under 2, through G&B (325-SEAT, 1-800-325-SEAT or www.ticketswest.com).

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