Dancers head to Moncton for annual festival

MONCTON, N.B. – Dancers from across the Maritimes and Quebec will be in Moncton this weekend for the Atlantic Dance Festival.

And 10-year-old Cassidy Thibodeau is set to compete.

“I have danced every night so that’s kind of getting me ready,” she said.

Thibodeau has been dancing since the age of three and spends seven days a week in the studio.

“Hip hop or B-boy would be my favorites because in B-boy you freestyle and I love to freestyle.”

She’s on her way to pursuing a professional dance career, which both her parents, Dan and Ginger Thibodeau, wholeheartedly support.

“It’s traveling on the weekends and missing some things that you might want to do so that you can chauffeur your daughter around but she loves it and that’s what’s important to us,” said Ginger Thibodueau.

There are more than 10,000 kids enrolled in dance classes across the Maritimes. But it can be a costly activity. In some cases, dance is more expensive than hockey.

Last year, the Thibodeau’s spent more than $7,000 to help their daughter pursue her career.

Chantal Cadieux is the director of the Atlantic Dance Festival and has been a dance instructor in Moncton for the 35 years. She says most kids have a better chance of carving out a career in dance than a young hockey player does making the NHL.

“I think there is a lot of opportunities because you can be a professional dancer but you can also be a professional dance development artist, teacher, choreographer,” she said.

Yet dance, she says, is often not taken seriously as a viable career option.

Emily Honegger has been a professional dancer for almost 10 years. It took her about half that time to land a full-time job with a company out of Quebec performing in the festival this weekend.

She says gone are the days of only ballet dancers making it onstage as professionals.

“In contemporary dance there are openings for more athletic bodies, you don’t have to have hips that go into hyperextension.”

Which means Cassidy may well be on her way to a big stage someday.  Even if she has to leave the Maritimes to do it.

“Doing something you love, I would do anything for it.”