THIS LATEST dance extravaganza for Studio 3 took place for the second year running in Harrogate Centre and what a fitting venue it has proved to be.

Large, spacious and comfortable with modern state-of-the-art facilities and a huge stage make for the perfect ingredients to complement and enhance the group’s annual dance show.

It gives the young dancers a fantastic opportunity to perform in a major venue and the best facilities to work with such as sound and lighting effects.

The first half of the programme was a ballet presenting a short adaptation of the classic fairytale of Cinderella. This delightful act moved fluidly from kitchen to ballroom and back again with a number of extra additions to the cast as well as the principal roles. The cutest chickens, chirpy village children, baby rats, lizards, mice and colourful flames and fire fairies, not to mention ballroom dancers and musicians, all made an appearance.

Principal roles were danced confidently, with the dancers looking totally relaxed and very at home on the stage. Particularly graceful and with great stage presence were Lydia Lee as the Fairy Godmother, Vicky Somerville as the Prince, Sacha Stansfield as the Rat and two particularly unpleasant Ugly Sisters – Nichola Holman and Alice Pye – accompanied by their evil Stepmother, Katharine Murphy.

Lynette Pickering gave a lovely interpretation of Cinderella and with Emma-Jane Sykes as Dandini, Millie Howard’s lovely Pumpkin and Jack Hennighan’s cheeky Cockerel, the cast was complete and each worked well together throughout the performance.

All the pupils at the Studio 3 school get a chance to perform and in the second half, four different sections gave everyone their moment starting with popular numbers from Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, some Sixties Soul and a spine-tingling Riverdance section, the latter now being a must-have part of any dance show following its massive success when it first appeared in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Mention must be made of the Choreography Winners – an annual competition which enables youngsters to choose their own music and put together their own dance steps.

A nice take on learning to dance performed by Marie Whiles, Emma MacEwan and Emma-Jane Sykes included humour and a well thought-out story line, while Alice Pye’s beautiful interpretation of the Sleeping Beauty Waltz bodes well for this youngster’s ballet career. A medley of number one hits from pop superstar Michael Jackson, ranging from Bad to Thriller and Billie Jean among others, brought the show to a close in an exciting and vibrant finale.

A packed audience rightly applauded and cheered the dancers as they took the final bow.

Worthy of mention were the costumes which must have involved a tremendous amount of hard work by the costumiers.