December 20, 2019 · 0 Comments
By Constance Scrafield
Carlyn Marlatt’s advice to young people wondering if they would like to learn to dance: “Just tell them that it’s all about having fun.” Her take on it is, “It’s not about this person being better than that – it’s making yourself feel happy.
“I’ve been dancing since I was three years old, beginning with acro [a mix of jazz and gymnastics]. I’m 11 years now, in grade six.”
We were speaking on the telephone with Carlyn and her mother, Lindsey Marlatt, about Carlyn’s life-long adventure with dance, which began at such an early age as she “never stopped dancing. She would pick up a doll and just danced with it.
“At first,” Ms. Marlatt told us, “we put her in gymnastics but that was a failure because it was a lot of waiting around in line for your turn. She just wanted to move all the time. So, we put her in dance at Citrus and she started dance and loved every moment of it.”
Carlyn was dancing in Ballet Jorgen’s Nutcracker at the Rose Theatre in Brampton this week.
“This is my third year doing it. I go to dance at Citrus five days a week.” In answer to the question, she simply replied, “Yes. Dance is a my life.”
Canada’s Ballet Jorgen’s (CBJ) was established in 1987 “to support the development of Canadian choreography …and, since its inception, CBJ has exclusively danced works created for the company by Canadian and Canada based choreographers.”
In particular, Canada Ballet Jorgen’s Nutcracker has become a Canadian tradition, for families in communities across the Canada. The company has chosen to place the story in the Canadian countryside as Klara comes to Canada “and experiences winter landscapes filled with snowflakes, lumberjacks, Mounties, and creatures of the woods.”
In a collaboration with McMichael’s Gallery in Kleinburg, the backdrop for the Nutcracker is a 30-foot reproduction of Franklin Carmichael’s Church and Houses at Bisset (1931), Tom Thomson’s Snow in the Woods (1916), and L.L. Fitzgerald’s Trees and Wildflowers (1922).
Part of CBJ’s mantra is to include a number of local and talented youth dancers in the communities in which their Nutcracker is performed, with up to 10 or 11 in each performance.
Of her own participation in this Nutcracker, dancing at the Rose Theatre, Carlyn told us, “When I was eight years a bear cub; at nine, I was a frog and a chipmunk and this year I’m a squirrel. The one year, I took a year off.
“What’s so special that I love about dancing– it makes me happy. I just get my vibes off, I like dancing with my friends so much and it’s a long time. I dance with Leah [Johnston] and Lilly [Taylor] at Citrus.”
Her mother commented, “We do take holidays. There’s a break in the summer but they have to be ready for competition. Citrus does the perfect balance: just enough time at the studio and school and family.
“In the summer, we go to the cottage. We rent and go somewhere different every year. We like to travel south in the winter, to Florida.”
Carlyn interjected, “We go to Myrtle Beach. Yes, I do like travelling.”
About dancing and homework: “Most of my homework is on my computer. Sometimes, I work on it before dance or after.”
Ms. Marlatt added, “Carlyn has learned how to manage her time very well. She never wanted to watch TV. She was always motivated, so, her time management is better than me…”
What makes me like this is I do mostly know I have to do this homework and dance but I make sure I do both of them all the time. I did soccer for a year and I did not like it at all.
“I like singing,” she said, “and possibly being involved in theatre; possibly taking acting classes. I want to be a teacher when I’m older and own my own dance studio and teach junior kindergarten. I like teaching the younger kids.
“I’m hoping to go to Mayfield Secondary School: I go to St. Andrews School now.”
Carlyn’s little brother is nine years old and in rep hockey and rep soccer.
“She was trying to do something different other than dance when she tried soccer,” commented Lindsey Marlatt.
“I love dance so much – love to do splits with no hands. I love to learn new things in dance,” Carlyn talked about the rules of taking dance,”I was doing acro but you have to take ballet but you don’t always have to do the group lessons. You can just take a class for it, one on one. You have to take at least two ballet classes.”
“She can still do flips and gymnastics,” her mother told us. “In dance you just move and she loved that too.”
“I really began ballet four years ago, with acro and jazz. It wasn’t a lot of slips, just kicking your leg up and hanging upside down. We got the bar and did exams. It was very much different and I realized that and then I loved it so much.”
Being on stage is another passion for Carlyn: “I just love love being myself and having so much fun. Every time I’m getting ready to go on stage, it just reminds me of having fun and dancing with my friends.
“On stage being myself, I’m so happy when I dance. I don’t really care about winning, I just love to have fun and that’s what it’s really about and making people happy to watch the show whenever they watch me dance.”
Carlyn danced at the Rose Theatre in Canada’s Ballet Jorgen on Wednesday this week.
“I missed it a lot last year when I couldn’t do it.”
Ms. Marlatt mentioned, “There were family health problems last year and we couldn’t commit but this year we said she should audition again and she was awarded a role.”
For Christmas, “We do have our tree up and everybody comes here but nothing is more Christmas than the Nutcracker.”
“I was so glad to be in it again this year. I love Jorgen Ballet’s Nutcracker,” Carlyn told the Citizen.