BY KAREN BOSSICK

Footlight Dance and Sun Valley Music Festival Music Institute students will do their part to spread holiday cheer with a free performance at the Wood River High School Performing Arts Theater at Hailey’s Community Campus on Saturday, Dec. 14.

And the dance students will lead up to it with a free performance at 12:20 p.m. today—Thursday, Dec. 12—at the Senior Connection in Hailey.

Twelve Footlight Dance and Music Institute students will perform together in Saturday’s performance, which starts at 7 p.m.

Footlight Company member Romina Zavala, a high school senior, will perform a solo choreographed by Footlight faculty member Mackenzie King set to the Overture from Suite No. 3 in D Major by J.S. Bach.

Violinists Leila Brickley and Cora Ward, viola player Fisher Hattula and cellist Elena Alajbegovic will perform as a quartet.

Ellen Sanders, String Department Head for the Sun Valley Music Festival Music Institute, will conduct the Sinfonia Pops Orchestra comprised of local middle and high school students.

Twelve dancers from Footlight, who attend Wood River High School, Wood River Middle School and the Sun Valley Community School, will perform a piece choreographed by Footlight Dance Director Hilarie Neely and Mackenzie King.

The evening will conclude with a Nutcracker Medley.

“Both programs are excited to bring the two arts disciplines together to perform for our second year,” said Hilarie Neely, director of Footlight Dance. “The dancers usually perform to pre-recorded music as live musicians are an expense we cannot afford to add onto our production costs. And the musicians rarely get the opportunity to play for dance.

“The experience brings challenges and rewards for both as the musicians learn to pay closer attention to details from the conductor in regard to tempo, and the dancers must listen to the subtle differences of the final version from recorded to live.”